


A Gentleman's Game

by nookienostradamus



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Black Humor, Blood, Chilton is a lovable douchebag, Eventual mild sexual content, Gen, Season 2, Werewolves, slight AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-02-03 07:05:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 56,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1735556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nookienostradamus/pseuds/nookienostradamus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stumbling blindly in the snowy woods out back of Will Graham's house, Frederick Chilton is bitten by one of Will's dogs. Only it isn't one of Will's dogs. </p><p>The incident marks the start of a strange and exhilarating transformation that might just give Frederick the opportunity for the revenge on Hannibal that he so--ahem--<i>doggedly</i> pursues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is about as close to crack!fic as I get. I wanted to whip something up that conjures the spirit of the show's take on Chilton--as comic relief. Expect dark comedy, but also a little angst and gore.
> 
> Many thanks to my main beta for this piece, [Mommybird](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Mommybird/pseuds/Mommybird), and also to [Portrait_of_a_Fool](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Portrait_of_a_Fool/pseuds/Portrait_of_a_Fool).
> 
> UPDATE: For all two of you who care, I haven't abandoned the fic...I'm just neck-deep in revisions on my book and it's taking up every inch of my headspace. WereFrederick returns shortly!

“A gentleman is simply a patient wolf.” - Lana Turner

“ _Homo homini lupus_ ” (" _Man is wolf to man_ ") - Roman proverb

***

He knew who was chasing him and he knew why, but by that point his hindbrain had taken over. When it came down to brass tacks, he was half a percent fight at most. The rest was flight. Cowardice, he rationalized, was the trade-off for a splendid intellect.

It was something he would resent when looking back, when he conducted a self-analysis that wasn’t actually analysis at all but a superficial indulgence in blaming circumstance.

Whether or not it reflected on his practice, Frederick Chilton sucked at introspection.

That there might not be time for looking back, of course, didn’t occur to him at that point. Not with the deafening neurochemical shout: _Run run run run run run…_

His dragging footsteps were muffled by the heavy snow. So, he had to assume, were Jack Crawford’s.

_This isn’t fair_ , he thought, skidding down a short embankment on the heels of his Napa leather Tod’s driving loafers. _I’m a cripple_. The coherent thought stopped him in his tracks, quite literally.

Ah, so he didn’t even have to wait until the aftermath for the blame to start. Funny the things the brain conjures when you’re about to die. The senses go into overdrive, which is good. 

Their evil cousin, imagination, also turns up the heat. That wasn’t nearly as great. Every naked tree branch against his face was a bullet whizzing by. Every burning faceful of snow was the splash of blood from his blown-out skull. With an entry wound to the back of the head, would the exit pop his eyes whole from their sockets? The last things he’d see would be snow and roots and pieces of his own face. Like looking at a mirror turned into a kaleidoscope. The sudden and vivid image made him gag.

Instead of doubling over and vomiting, Frederick started running again. He had zero doubt that, given the chance, Crawford would shoot him down like a dog.

That was a painful cliché, but it had probably occurred to him because of the dog. A _real_ dog. A big, gray one, standing off to the side between two tree trunks like it was just popping its head out the door to watch this staggering, panting wreck of a man go by. _Voyeur_. Frederick didn’t trust animals because he couldn’t tell exactly how much they saw.

He didn’t trust people for the same reason.

Though Frederick had other things on his mind while scrambling up the far side of the embankment--namely the smell of blood that still hung on him even after scrubbing himself raw in Will Graham’s shower--he couldn’t remember seeing this particular brute among Graham’s pack. For one thing, it was huge, with the rangy, long-legged appearance of a wild dog. Maybe it was one of those wolf half-breeds, though Frederick couldn’t imagine even Graham would be stupid enough to take in something so volatile. To be fair, though, Will had flirted with sheer idiocy in letting Hannibal Lecter into close confidence. But the fact of it made Frederick an idiot by association and that wasn’t something he wanted to dwell on. 

_Maybe it was part coyote. Were there coyotes in Virginia?_

The dog-coyote-wolf-thing cocked its head, its ears swiveling in Frederick’s direction. Its pale blue marble eyes, set in a mask of lighter gray fur, projected a semblance of unsettling self-awareness. Once again, Frederick felt sure he would have seen such a singular animal back at the house. Yet it must have been there, sniffing at him in a predator’s ecstasy but too tame to act on its instinct.

Frederick would never discount instinct again. 

The dog opened its mouth in a canine grin, huffing out a cloud of steam into the frigid air. Tongue lolling, it started padding out of the thicket on huge paws. It got bigger every time Frederick looked at it. Seemed it wasn’t content with only watching. 

Frederick’s already overtaxed adrenal glands managed to double the output when the dog stopped abruptly in its tracks then drew back its lips and snarled. With his panic-heightened eyesight, he could see its throat vibrating.

Running past it was the only option, because Frederick couldn’t head back toward the house. Toward Jack Crawford. Or, rather, the eerie snowbound silence where he knew Crawford waited.

The dog watched him, still growling, swiveling its head as he changed direction and skirted the thicket to his right. His toe caught in a snarl of fallen branches and he went down hard on one knee, losing a loafer in the process of extricating himself. 

At that moment it occurred to him that the last thing he might think in his life was: _Damn you and your dogs, Will Graham_. It sounded like something a comic book supervillain would say while shaking a fist at the sky. For the time being, though, Frederick Chilton was a supervillain. At least according to the FBI. How much more depraved could one get than the Chesapeake Ripper?

For the first and arguably the stupidest time since the frame job went down, Frederick laughed. He laughed about it all, wheezing and weeping and stumbling to the point that he couldn’t run anymore. 

Unfortunately, the whole display seemed to wind the dog up even more. Every time it took a breath, the growl came in with a high-pitched whine at the top. Its lips rose and fell like malfunctioning stage curtains over its huge fence-picket teeth. Some part of Frederick thought it might be better if Jack came along and shot him. It was preferable to being gutted (or to witnessing the ugly demise of his Burberry peacoat).

The dog crouched, its haunches quivering, preparing to leap. 

Frederick stopped laughing and stared, drawing freezing sips of air into his lungs.

_Come on, hindbrain, don’t fail me now_.

It didn’t. He fainted into the snow.

***

For the third time in a year, Frederick woke up smelling blood. _Congratulations, Dr. Chilton. You have won the Triple Crown of Mutilation. You get a wreath of entrails._

Because of the smell, he expected pain, but there was none. He tried to open his eyes and failed for a panicked second before he realized that his eyelids were frozen shut. The frosty trails that wound through the miniature forest of his five o’clock shadow were old tears. New ones--not of fear but of relief--flooded in and thawed his stuck lids. 

The cold let him know that he was alive. Either that or it had literally snowed in Hell, but at that moment Frederick chose the most orthodox atheism possible to reassure himself he was still breathing. A second later, there it came: the breath that stung his ravaged throat and made his teeth ache.

He let go and sobbed like a child--just a couple of hiccuping convulsions and plenty of fresh, hot tears before humiliation crept up on him. He sniffled hard and pulled a sizable quantity of snot back into his sinuses. Cold air came with it, and he started tearing up again. 

Finally, he was able to open his eyes and got a couple of blinks in the white, waning afternoon before something frigid and rubbery thumped down on his forehead. He tried to move his hand to lift the offending object, then it dawned on him that it _was_ his hand, stiff and numb with cold.

His coat sleeve was missing, his entire forearm bare and bluish. At least he wasn’t so rusty in his diagnostic skills that he didn’t think to check for frostbite. A couple of fingertips looked white, but there was no blackening yet. Frederick sighed his relief. He would rather not lose yet another body part. Strangely, there didn’t appear to be any bite marks or scratches. The skin was unblemished. 

But the blood had to have come from somewhere. It was all over his coat front, and freezing in cubist rock-candy crystals on the tatters of his shirt sleeve. The dog might have been injured. Maybe it thought he was trying to harm it, that the defensive growls had been the last resort of a dying animal.

Or maybe he’d killed the dog himself. Why not? There were stories of mothers _in extremis_ lifting two-ton cars to reach trapped children. Frederick could have gone berserk in a self-preserving rage and torn out the beast’s throat. He clung hard to the idea because it meant he’d done something exceptional, even if he didn’t remember it.

The warm little kernel began to flower inside him, raising hesitant tendrils. Frederick would rather be publicly flogged than admit to the fact that, deep down, he was a bit of a fantasist. While he loathed the lies that people told themselves, he had a soft spot for the lies people told each other: fables, myths, tales, outlandish explanations straddling the line between feasible and ridiculous. He’d spent many a frigid winter evening during his medical residency sneaking looks at his volume of Bulfinch’s Greek Mythology or the _Prose Edda_ or the _Táin Bó Cúailnge_ behind his clipboard.

Frederick, a small and weak child who’d grown into a small and weak man, nevertheless let his mind thrill to the exploits of Beowulf or Cú Chulainn. Anger, pain, fear: they all did things to men, transformed them. Frederick wanted to believe this time that for an instant he’d tapped into a vein of rage deep inside himself--if not godlike then at least elevated--and saved his own life.

But wouldn’t the dog’s mangled body be lying somewhere close? Frederick frowned. Maybe it had gone after Jack Crawford instead. The man had been only a few paces behind him, gaining all the while on Frederick’s limping run. Maybe it was the dog that had saved _his_ life. If so, he owed thanks, if indirectly, to Will Graham, though he didn’t savor the idea of having to say it out loud.

Fighting the vertiginous lurch his brain gave in his skull, Frederick sat up and looked at the deep red puddle that had spread into the snow. The blood had already re-frozen on the ground, but it beaded and ran on his rapidly warming flesh. Outside of that, everything else was white. White and silent.

He took a breath, then another, trying to put off the embarrassing moment when he’d try to stand up. _Here’s your wolf-pelted warrior, Odin. A gimp on a cane._

Frederick looked around for said cane. Silly, considering he’d left it in Graham’s parlor (or what passed for one in that rustic hellhole). The painful tingling in his limbs reinforced the fact that he couldn’t just sit there mired in blood and disappointment. Hands braced on the ground behind his back, he pushed his weight forward, but his feet were still too anesthetized from the cold to bear weight and he thumped back hard on his ass, cursing.

A branch snapped nearby with a brittle click and Frederick went still, holding his breath.

“Dr. Chilton!” 

It was Will Graham’s voice. The panic engine inside Frederick’s chest thrummed to life again. “No,” he said, softly but firmly. 

“Dr. Chilton!”

Frederick struggled to find the balance to get to his feet, confused for only a moment before realizing he was already standing. His legs were tensed, his abdomen pain-free thanks to renewed adrenaline. He was ready to run.

Graham’s head in a foolish-looking hunter’s cap crested the snowbank.

Hesitating a second too long while deciding if his insides could take another dash, Frederick finally just put his hands up, fighting back tears as Graham approached. “Please,” he breathed, the self-disgust manifest in a cloud on the freezing air. “Please.”

“I’m not going to hurt you,” Graham said, mirroring Frederick and raising his own gloved hands.

“Where’s Crawford?” Frederick asked him.

“Gone,” said Graham. “I promise.”

“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t trust your promises, Mr. Graham,” said Frederick, his heartbeat still loud in his ears. He sniffed. “Jack Crawford doesn’t just give up.”

“He didn’t give up. I persuaded him to stop,” Graham said. “For the moment.”

“You...wait--” Frederick said. “You sent one of your dogs after me. I’m sure it knew my scent. Did it bring part of my coat back as a souvenir?” He flapped his naked arm as punctuation.

Graham stepped closer. He looked confused. “All of my dogs are at the house.”

“Well, there was a dog here,” Frederick said, feeling a little like a child trying to will an imaginary friend into existence. “A gray one. _Huge_.”

“Then it wasn’t one of mine,” Graham said.

“Oh, great,” said Frederick, mostly to himself, thinking about the painful series of rabies shots. Then again, it didn’t even seem like any damage was done. He examined his arm again, smeared with whorls of bloody snow. _Nothing_.

“Are you hurt?”

“I--I don’t know,” Frederick said, blinking.

Graham took a step toward him. “Why don’t you come back to the house?”

Frederick huffed out a brief, swirling cloud. “You must think I’m a moron,” he said. “For all I know, Crawford is there waiting for me.”

Graham’s expression was patient, not at all telegraphing--as expected--that he, indeed, thought Frederick was a moron. “He’s not." Graham took a breath. "Dr. Chilton, Jack broke his ankle. I heard it go. He wanted to keep chasing you but I made him stop. I practically had to drag him out of a gully. I would have been back here sooner but I had to wait for the ambulance.”

Relief flooded Frederick’s body in a wash from his scalp downward. The spike of adrenaline spooled into a giddy euphoria. He raised watering eyes to the dull, gray sky, then let them fall closed.

“If they bring a team of bloodhounds back here, they’ll find your scent,” Graham said. “So I suggest you come with me.”

Frederick wiped his streaming eyes, ran the back of his hand under his nose. “Why do you care what happens to me? You were the one who called Jack in the first place.”

Graham paused, his brow furrowed. “I had a change of heart. At first I thought you’d be safer in prison, but I realized he can get in almost anywhere he wants.”

“Lecter,” said Frederick.

“Yes,” said Graham. “The Chesapeake Ripper.”

“Thank God,” Frederick said.

“I know it wasn’t you,” said Graham. “Even though you thought it was me. I don’t hold unproductive grudges, Dr. Chilton.”

“I do,” Frederick said. “I’m going to see that son-of-a-bitch go down.”

Graham raised his eyebrows, as if impressed by the sentiment. “I want the same thing you do,” he told Frederick, “but don’t let Hannibal in your mind. That’s why I decided to help you hide.” Graham tapped his temple twice with his forefinger. “This is the only place he can’t go. Not anymore.”

Frederick nodded and sniffed, drawing the back of his hand under his nose. It came away unpleasantly sticky.

“Are you going to come with me?” Graham extended one hand. “Hypothermia will set in soon, if it hasn’t already.”

“I know,” Frederick said. “Once again, I’m not an idiot.” He brushed snow from his clothes, trying and failing to hide his sudden exasperation. “I had to know it was safe.”

To his surprise, Will Graham smiled. “If you’re waiting for safety, Dr. Chilton, you’re going to freeze to death.”

Frederick clenched his teeth but said nothing. 

Graham turned to head back to the cabin, but stopped and looked back. “You should probably leave your coat,” he said. “To throw them off.”

“Apparently you _do_ want me to freeze to death,” said Frederick.

“It won’t be long,” said Graham. “You didn’t get as far as you think you did.” 

Frederick ground his teeth. “I’m not sure I got anywhere at all.”

Graham turned fully around to face him. “Out of the frying pan, into the fire,” he said, without a trace of irony. Then he grinned. “You could always leave your pants.”

Frederick gave an indignant huff, but peeled off the bloody coat and dropped it where he had lain. Clutching himself, he followed Graham back in the direction of his cabin. He was shivering so hard he could barely see when he reached the front porch, and the exertion melted the ice down the back of his trouser legs, where the biting wind promptly re-froze it to his skin. Graham’s dogs spilled out in a warm tide of swishing tails and snuffling noses. They poked their snouts up into his crotch, where his balls were drawn in so tight against the cold that it hurt.

There on the threshold, assaulted by indecorous mutts, Frederick figured that it couldn’t get much worse. 

As it turned out, it could.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is blatant fanservice and I give not a single fuck.

At least the bed was warm, if the mattress was a bit lacking. Frederick rolled over, clutching the quilt to his chest against the cold and luxuriating in the feel of the silk pajamas he’d had the forethought to pack.

He couldn’t really force himself to feel badly about the fact that Graham had spent the night on his lumpy couch. For all that their shared experiences--namely treachery at the hands of Hannibal Lecter--Frederick just did not _like_ Will Graham. He was rough, provincial. His house reeked of dog, his kitchen of microwave meals. More than that, the man was an open wound, bleeding his frankly creepy empathy in smears all over the people in his periphery. Will Graham was the human equivalent of Frederick’s corpse-strewn house.

The returning thought of his _sanctum sanctorum_ so invaded made Frederick grumpy. The peevishness, like the pajamas, was a luxury--one that, during his ordeal in the snow-strewn wilderness, he never thought he’d be able to experience again. He contemplated staying in bed all day in celebration.

There was a rich smell drifting up from downstairs, though, and his stomach had begun to complain. Frederick tried to quiet it by telling himself the food on offer was probably some pre-packaged dreck but he went from interested to ravenous faster than he would have thought possible. His gut actually _cramped_ with want when he heard the sizzling crescendo of something hitting a hot pan.

Of course he hadn’t thought to bring slippers, and the uneven wood floor was cold. He hopped around in discomfort for a moment, trying to pry a pair of cashmere socks from the overnight bag. Frederick couldn’t believe he’d thought such a tiny kit would be sufficient after fleeing to Europe (the option was still tempting but not viable; the FBI had probably frozen his bank accounts), but he’d been distracted by haste and terror. As for cash, he had about four hundred or so, most of which would have to be dropped on food and clothes. The thought of relying entirely on Will Graham’s hospitality _or_ his wardrobe was repellent.

Frederick’s stomach, evidently less discerning than his brain, reminded him with a loud grumble that a meal was on offer. He opened the bedroom door expecting to wade through a rippling tide of dogs, but the hallway was clear. One of these days he’d end up kicking one of the smaller dogs, possibly not by accident. Especially since he’d already started to think of his stay at Graham’s place in terms of days rather than hours. 

How long would it take to clear his name? Weeks? _Months?_ In the interim, Crawford would come back, sniffing around, busted ankle or no. The fact that Will had called him in the first place could possibly be enough to throw him off the scent for a while, but the BAU chief would no doubt be in this house again, forcing Frederick to cower in a closet or underneath the bed. It was awful enough a prospect that he pushed the idea away. Or it could have been shoved out by the aromas floating up from downstairs. His stomach gave another growl. He raised a hand and patted the slight bulge of his belly. Frederick wasn’t sure he’d ever been this hungry in his life.

_Nothing works up an appetite like dodging bullets after being framed for grisly crimes._ The sudden surge of hatred for Hannibal Lecter hit Frederick so hard it made him dizzy. Leaning against the door frame, the notion crossed his mind that he might be better off just killing himself. It was a desperation-fueled thought experiment and would go no further than that; Frederick knew he didn’t have the sack for suicide. That, of course, begged the question of whether he had the balls to keep living. Hiding like a rat or sucking on a shotgun: both of them were untenable, so his mind settled on a sort of in-between.

_Schrödinger’s Chilton._

He laughed, possibly out loud, then a knotting pang bent him almost double, as if his body was protesting the humor. It protested everything this morning. The hunger was in the driver’s seat. The hunger was paramount.

Trying to move quietly on the old, creaking boards, Frederick made his way down the hall. In his famished haze, he failed to realize he’d left his cane, unneeded, in the bedroom. 

Graham was standing at the small gas stove in a t-shirt and a pair of ragged flannel pants. He was wielding a pitted and burned spatula that looked like it came straight out of a rummage sale. Frederick tried to muster disdain, but his gaze was drawn to the plate of crisp bacon on the counter at Graham’s elbow.

The combined scent and idea of it made Frederick’s mouth water so copiously he had to swallow twice before he could even think of speaking.

Graham beat him to the punch without even turning around. “There’s coffee if you want it.” he gestured to the table, where two mugs sat next to a dented carafe.

With Frederick’s luck it was instant. Or one of those awful brands that came in a vacuum-sealed can.

Suddenly feeling self-conscious in his comparative finery, Frederick walked to the table and poured himself a steaming cup. To his surprise, it was full-bodied and smooth. 

“Good, right?” Graham asked. He was acting like the two of them had roomed together for weeks, and it was unnerving at the very least. Graham turned away from the stove to fix Frederick with an unreadable gaze. “I learned a certain appreciation for high-end coffee from--” he started, then apologized. “Well, you know. Sore subject I’m sure.”

Learned it from Hannibal, was what he was going to say. 

“The good doctor’s tastes certainly evoke a mixed response,” Frederick said. “They’re similar enough to mine to be unsettling.”

“Look at it this way,” Graham said, turning back to his work on the stove. Frederick took a burning gulp of coffee to quiet the tumult in his gut. “Hannibal duped me,” Graham said, “and my tastes are just about at the opposite pole, generally speaking. I’m pretty sure he can dupe anyone.”

Frederick raised his mug a couple of inches in a private salute, trying to fend off the returning crush of misery.

“Bacon?” Graham asked. “I promise it comes from a pig.”

Frederick gagged on his coffee. “No.” It was a prim, terse refusal. “If you’ll remember, I can’t digest animal proteins.”

“Sorry,” Graham said, not sounding very sorry at all. “Eggs?”

“That’s still animal protein, Mr. Graham.”

“Huh,” Graham said, as if the fact that chickens produced eggs was news to him. “Might be dry toast for you, then.”

Maybe this was payback for making him sleep on the couch. 

Graham transferred the last of the dripping bacon onto the plate and went to open his old refrigerator. 

On the counter, the plate of meat was beckoning. Frederick could almost see the waves of scent drifting upward from the crisp slices. He shut his eyes tight and put the lip of his coffee mug directly under his nose. If he gave in to temptation, he’d pay for it later.

“How did you sleep?” asked Graham.

“Like the dead,” said Frederick, eyes still closed.

Graham’s laugh startled him. Coffee splashed onto the formica tabletop. Frederick was briefly glad that it hadn’t gone the other way, right into his lap.

“Nice to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor,” Graham told him, shutting the refrigerator door and moving to the cupboards. His movement wafted more of the bacon smell toward Frederick, who bit the inside of his cheek to keep from charging the countertop and shouldering Graham out of the way. “To be honest, I wasn’t sure you had one,” said Graham.

Frederick kept silent. He hadn’t thought his answer was at all funny, but he figured it was better as a guest to be at least a little solicitous. Graham was awfully jovial. It seemed out of character--like he was concealing something and doing a poor job of it. Maybe it was the relief of not having to shoulder the burden of the Ripper’s crimes anymore. He could sit across the table from the current scapegoat and know he was safe.

The idea left a sour taste in Frederick’s mouth. “Why are you helping me?” he asked.

To his surprise, Graham stopped, a can of baked beans in his hand. It was as if he had never expected the question to arise. For a second, Frederick thought Graham might be playing dumb, then he sighed, paused again, and set the can on the counter. “I’m not sure I am,” he said. “Helping, I mean.”

Frederick’s hand began to tremble, and he put the mug of coffee down. The weakness of his own voice disgusted him. “If you’d be so good as to refrain from calling Jack Crawford, I’d consider that ‘helping.’”

“No,” Graham said, “I’m not going to call Jack again. Whatever is going to happen, I think you have a part in it. It’s just a feeling, really.”

“So you don’t have a plan?” Frederick asked. 

Will laughed again. This time the sound was imbued with considerably less humor. “To take Hannibal down? Expose him for what he is? No. I don’t. Not as such.” He pulled a plastic-wrapped loaf of bread from the breadbox and removed two slices from the bag.

Frederick tried to fight back the rising tide of hopelessness.

Giving the free end of the plastic bag a ferocious twist before shoving the loaf back into the breadbox, Graham spoke again. “But what he did to you set something in motion. Back when it was just me--when I was the only one who knew what Hannibal was--I was stuck. He put me in a cage, literally and figuratively.”

Taking another swig of the coffee, Frederick concentrated on his anger at Hannibal Lecter rather than on Graham’s words. He’d been the keeper of that cage, but it was much easier to salve his battered ego by telling himself he’d been conned by Hannibal than to admit he’d been, independent of circumstance, utterly wrong in his diagnosis of Will Graham. 

“But the cage he made is only big enough for one,” Graham continued. “Putting you in my place--or trying--means I’m out of the cage now.” A soft, metallic clanging signaled that Graham had put the bread slices into his ancient toaster. 

The yeasty smell of warming bread twined with the scent of bacon and Frederick pressed a fist against his stomach to stop its loud griping. “And I’m in it, whether it’s at my hospital or not,” he said.

Graham inclined his head, though whether it was in sympathy or in agreement Frederick couldn’t tell. “As smart as Hannibal is, he’s not supernatural,” Graham said. “He sees his interactions with me, with the BAU, as a puppet show, but he doesn’t hold all of the strings. One day, he’ll make a mistake.”

“I’m supposed to wait around for that day?” Frederick asked. “Living in limbo?”

“You’re not in limbo,” said Graham. “Limbo is uncertainty. You’re one of two people who’s seen Hannibal’s true face, and that’s put you on firmer ground than almost anyone.”

“You know,” said Frederick, “you talk like he does. All those heavy-handed metaphors.” As for himself, Frederick liked to keep his language pragmatic, neutral. Verbal flourishes and grandiosities functioned as tiny windows into a personality. While he henpecked them in his patients, he eschewed them himself, aware that the slightest allusion could provide a portal to his rich inner mythos. The fact that in this mythos he was indubitably the star player was also something to keep guarded from prying minds. By contrast, Hannibal dangled his own myths like a hypnotist’s pendulum. He oozed excess just as distastefully as Graham did. 

“I take on characteristics of those I analyze,” Graham said, lapsing into obvious shrink-speak. “It’s part of my _disorder_.”

The statement betrayed a glimpse of the immense reservoir of bitterness Graham felt toward his former psychiatrist. Frederick grasped at that view and held it close. For once in longer than he cared to remember, he shared an emotional experience with another human being. Damned if he was going to give Graham a peek at that gratitude, though.

The thwack of the toaster jolted him out of his reverie. Graham had opened the can of beans. “I think it’s also part of the plan, what little of it there is right now,” he said.

“There was a time when we thought you took on some of Lecter’s more… _singular_ characteristics.” Adding Alana Bloom and Jack Crawford into the mix took some of the onus off of Frederick himself in the expansive mistake that was Will Graham’s arrest and institutionalization.

Graham chuckled while he poured the sticky mass from the can over the slices of toast. “The argument for you as the Ripper is even more flimsy than for me. Pretentious habits are a poor substitute for disordered empathy in the evidence department.”

That one stung. “I _have_ empathy,” Frederick said, with no true credence behind the words. “It’s just not--as you pointed out-- _disordered_. And, may I remind you, they have physical evidence on the both of us.”

The only thing Graham said was, “Mm-hmm.” With his back turned, it was impossible to read his face.

“I don’t suppose that cautioning you about getting close to Lecter once again would dissuade you,” Frederick said. 

“‘Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.’” Graham walked over with the plate and set it down in front of Frederick. His expression was as inscrutable as the back of his head had been. “Breakfast the English way.”

“I’m merely saying that anyone observing this situation from the outside would tell you you’re running _into_ the burning building.” Frederick picked up his fork and poked at the beans, wrinkling his nose. “Not out of it.”

“Hannibal has to see it that way,” said Graham. “We need to make him believe he’s in control.”

“ _We_?” Frederick set the fork down and pushed the plate away. “Oh, no, _no_ , Mr. Graham. This is your show, puppet or otherwise. When I said that I wanted to see Hannibal brought down, I meant that I want to observe it from _very_ far away.”

Graham shook his head. “It doesn’t work that way, Dr. Chilton. You’re involved whether you like it or not. I’m tempted to say you got involved the day I came into your hospital, if not before. You, me, Jack, Alana, everyone--we’re stuck in this until it ends.”

Frederick felt indignation rising, satisfied that it almost eclipsed the hunger still gnawing in his gut. “That’s easy for you to say as someone who’s not on the hook for his murders anymore,” he said. “You could walk away right now and leave me hanging in the wind. Pack up your… _dogs_ and move to Florida or something. The proverbial sword of Damocles is no longer hanging over your head.”

“‘Sword of Damocles,’ huh?” Graham asked, pinching a piece of the greasy bacon between his thumb and forefinger. Frederick watched the meat it as it moved to his lips, past them, into his mouth. It took a couple of seconds for him to remind himself to look away. If Graham noticed his blush, he didn’t show it. “Bit of a mythology buff there, Dr. Chilton? You know, Hannibal’s quite the fan as well.”

“I am _nothing_ like Hannibal,” he said. “And I am nothing like you. If you want an accomplice, Mr. Graham, you’re looking at the wrong man. I’m not going to take on the Chesapeake Ripper, and I don’t think its in your best interest to do so, either.”

“There isn’t a choice,” Graham said, speaking around a mouthful of bacon. “Like I said before, you’re part of this.”

“I’m staying here out of necessity,” said Frederick, “not because I approve of your methods or your lifestyle, or because I even _like_ you. You are a last resort.”

“Oh, I’m aware that you don’t like me, Dr. Chilton,” said Graham. “It’ll come as no surprise that I don’t like you either.” He smiled, picking up the plate of bacon. “But I’m not a last resort. I’m your _only_ resort. Keep your friends close...right?”

Frederick bit his lip, then let go with an exasperated sigh. “I believe I’ve lost my appetite.”

“Understandable,” Graham said, smiling. “Must be all these animal proteins.” He raised the lid of the trash can by the sink and dumped the entire plate of cooked bacon into it.

Frederick had to hold back a whimper.

“I’m going to have a shower,” said Graham, putting the empty dish in the sink. “You’re more than welcome to take one afterward, though you may not want to. I’ll need some help splitting wood this afternoon, and it’s sweaty work.”

Frederick’s mouth dropped open. By the time he had the wherewithal to force sound out of it, Graham had left the kitchen.


	3. Chapter 3

Since he’d been unable (and, let’s face it, unwilling) to eat the mess that Graham had “cooked” up for him, Frederick found himself excused from wood-chopping duty. It was no relief, though. The chore would take Graham at least a couple of hours--time in which he wouldn’t be making the trek to the grocery store to procure something Frederick actually _could_ eat. 

He stood under the surprisingly hot spray of Graham’s shower for a good fifteen minutes, all the while trying not to consider a scenario in which boredom would cause him to go asking Graham for work around the house to stave off cabin fever. Did the man have any books in the place? Steadfast in his resolve not to pay attention to his dismal surroundings (there was a fishing rod in the umbrella stand for heaven’s sake, its gossamer line drifting loose and spilling over the container’s edge like a tiny flume), Frederick hadn’t noticed. Graham didn’t strike him as the type to read fiction, especially not after having recently lived through events that would make a blockbuster screenplay writer salivate. Frederick extended his bathing for a couple of additional minutes while pondering who might portray him in a film. Someone complex and subtle. Couldn’t be a big name, but, Frederick reasoned, he had to have incredible range. 

Perhaps he was only wishing for flexibility himself, considering that what was unfolding now was the sequel to Graham’s tribulations. Maybe they needed a television series.

The shower had helped, but Frederick suspected he wouldn’t feel human again until he was dressed in his own clothes. But when he’d managed to waddle, clutching a towel so thin and small it might have been lifted from a budget hotel room around his waist, back to the bedroom both of his bags were gone.

Laying on the bed, instead, were a pair of corduroys, a white undershirt, and a plaid work shirt. At least Graham had left his silk-blend Emporio Armani briefs. But the rest of it? No. Absolutely not.

“Graham!” he called. No answer. “Graham! Where are my things?”

After getting no response for a second time, Frederick tried to knot the towel tighter around his hips, cursing the bit of extra padding he’d put on while recuperating from Gideon’s attack. He left the bedroom again and walked toward the front of the house. 

The smell that still lingered in Will Graham’s kitchen stopped him just as his bare feet touched the pitted linoleum. Instead of waning, it seemed as if the bacon-scent had only gotten stronger and more complex--a dark, gamey note with a certain caramelized sweetness layered over it. He shook his head. Dear God, listen to him thinking about cheap, grocery store bacon like it was cologne. Still, he found he couldn’t make himself walk through the kitchen--past the trash can--into the living room to continue the search.

_Maybe I’ll just_ look _at it._

Had Frederick ever been an addict, he would have recognized within his skull the siren song of the near-relapse. The closest he’d come to addiction was an unhealthy fascination with the dissociative identities section of the DSM-III in college. He’d read the section thirty times (and yes, he counted).

Tiptoeing even though no one else was in the house to hear, he crossed the short span to the waste bin. The dogs had to be outside with Graham, frolicking in the snow to the thunk of an axe, or they might long since have ferreted the discarded bacon out of the trash. The pastoral grotesquery of it all might have struck Frederick once again if he weren’t so intent on other things.

He lifted the lid and the aroma that billowed out nearly caused him to drop it again--not from disgust but from ecstasy. There was now a sour undertone of rotting citrus rind winding around the smell, and it bloomed across Frederick’s palate like a fireworks show.

Before he knew what he was doing, he had a piece of the bacon between his fingers. 

_Maybe I’ll just_ sniff _it._

He did, and the explosions were brighter and closer together. Lord have mercy. The rational part of Frederick’s brain knew that if he took a single bite it could mean violent intestinal cramping and diarrhea at the very least.

And for only a second he figured he would be okay, because smelling the bacon was almost tantamount to tasting it, so rich was the scent. Then suddenly there were salty-rich crumbles in his mouth and he was digging through the refuse with both hands for every bit he could find.

An indeterminate amount of time later he heard the front door open. 

“Dr. Chilton?”

It registered then exactly where Frederick was and what he was doing. When he looked down at his hands, he saw they were covered with grease and specks of burned pork fat. The towel had slipped from his hips and lay on the floor, also speckled with bacon crumbs. He heard footsteps and scrambled to pull it up again, unwilling to be discovered standing naked over Will Graham’s trash can with a mouthful of discarded bacon.

“Graham?” He swallowed another chunk of half-masticated meat, not without difficulty.

“It’s me,” Graham said. “Don’t worry.”

Frederick heard the telltale ticking of nails on the hardwood--the tide of dogs that Graham had ridden into the house. There was a wet slapping sound as one or more of them began to shake off the snow. To Frederick’s surprise, the wet-dog smell wasn’t as offensive as he expected. He swallowed again. “Where are my things?”

Graham, who had not bothered to knock the snow from his heavy work boots, walked to the edge of the kitchen, then turned his head away. He may have been concealing a laugh. Seven pairs of unsettlingly keen canine eyes watched from roughly the level of Graham’s knees.

“You can’t just take my clothes,” Frederick said.

“You can’t just _wear_ your clothes,” said Graham. “I’ll have to turn them over to Jack. You’re supposed to be stumbling out in the wilderness at large somewhere. It would look awfully suspicious if you came back for your things. As it is I had to burn the ones you wore yesterday.”

“You left my underwear!”

Graham smiled and ducked his head again, trying not to look at what was no doubt the ridiculous figure Frederick cut. “I figured giving you mine was a bridge too far.”

“This is _all_ a bridge too far,” Frederick said. “I’m just not comfortable--”

“Listen, Dr. Chilton,” Graham interrupted. “Do you think a cell in the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane would be more comfortable? Because I can tell you from firsthand experience it’s not.”

That stopped the words in Frederick’s throat. He chewed his lower lip for a moment. “I have some money,” he said. “If it wouldn’t be altogether too much trouble for you, I’d like to ask you to use some of it to buy things for my...stay here.”

“I can do that,” Graham said. “It won’t be the mall at Reston or anything, but I know of a couple of outdoor goods places that’ll be good for basic staples. Pants and shirts, maybe a new coat.”

Outdoor goods, Frederick thought. That probably meant brands like Patagonia, The North Face, Columbia. Not his cup of tea, as he didn’t really go in for the faux-rugged look, but he’d rather look like a wealthy poseur than a ranch hand. 

“You’ll be cold if you walk around in nothing but underwear until then,” said Graham.

“I’m not even sure we wear the same size, Mr. Graham.”

“Well,” Graham said, “the pants could be a little tight.”

Frederick let an indignant sniff slip before he could rein in his offense. “I’m sure it’s fine.” Sucking in his gut and clutching the towel tight around him, he turned to go.

“Oh, Dr. Chilton?” Graham called.

Frederick turned.

Graham gestured with his knuckles to a spot on his own face near the corner of his mouth. “You’ve got a little something--” he trailed off.

Brushing at his face, Frederick was appalled to find a good-size crumb of bacon clinging to his left cheek. He flicked it away with a dismissive flourish and turned on his heel, determined that Graham wouldn’t see the flush of shame that he could feel creeping up his neck to his face. In any case, it would be worse later when he’d have to destroy the man’s bathroom because of one stupid, mindless dietary slip-up.

Cringing in anticipation of the first waves of gastrointestinal protest, Frederick scurried down the hall and back into the bedroom, closing the door behind him. He turned toward the bed but stopped cold when he saw his cane propped against the bedside table. He couldn’t remember having used it since entering Will Graham’s house yesterday. Had it only been one day? It seemed like a year ago that he’d come shambling up the porch steps begging for sanctuary--a request he’d originally been denied.

But any residual anger about being sold out to Jack Crawford yesterday was overtaken by wonder at the fact that he had simply forgotten he walked with a cane. There was no rational--and more importantly, no medical--explanation for it. The rippled scar that twisted like a miniature mountain range over his abdomen was still there, but where before it had felt like a suspension bridge attached with taut steel cables to every single one of his remaining internal organs, now it only meandered across his skin, a tourist attraction.

A cynic by nature, Frederick did not care to assume that the pain would never return, but if worst came to worst he could bear up using the furniture. The idea of returning to bed for the foreseeable future had renewed appeal, but he was far too curious about this newfound mobility. The empiricist in him wanted to test his limits. The wishful thinker wanted to believe he was cured.

Hell with it. He’d hand the cane over to Graham and, if necessary, he’d just have him whittle down a tree branch or something. Wasn’t that what these rustics did?

Frederick picked up the t-shirt on the bed, running the rough fabric between his fingers. He gave it a sniff. It smelled like plastic. That, at least, was new and unworn. The plaid overshirt and the corduroys retained a hint of Graham’s wretched aftershave. Frederick’s lip curled almost on instinct. He himself wore Gaultier’s Le Male--a powdery and almost feminine scent if one lacked the nose for its obvious complexities. Graham’s stuff telegraphed “philistine alpha jock” so well Frederick would think the stammering profiler would be offended if he were ever convinced to care. On second thought, perhaps the “philistine” part was the operative.

Distaste notwithstanding, he put on the clothes. 

The pants were, indeed, just a little tight. He pulled in his gut again and fastened them, annoyed. It was too cold not to wear the overshirt. If Frederick were a fighting man he’d like to punch whomever thought to degrade tartan by combining it with flannel. Those new clothes would have to come sooner rather than later.

Affecting as stiff and regal a posture as he could in cowboy duds, Frederick walked down the hall, cane in hand, taking care that its rubber tip hovered an inch or so above the floor.

Much to Frederick’s distaste, he found Graham fiddling with the components of a disassembled chainsaw right on the living room rug. “You’ll need this, too,” he said, holding out the cane.

“Won’t you?”

“I’ll manage.”

Graham shrugged and took the cane, setting it aside. 

One of the smaller dogs got to its feet and padded over to Frederick, sniffing at his cashmere socks. It prodded his toes with its snout once or twice, then whined and lay down, exposing its pink-nippled belly. Frederick tried not to grimace. 

“That’s Buster,” Graham said, unprompted.

“Good to know,” said Frederick, taking a couple of shuffling steps backward.

“Not a dog person?” asked Graham.

Frederick pulled his lips back in a grim smile. “I typically have enough helpless dependents under my care to make owning a pet a bit of overkill, Mr. Graham.”

“If we’re going to be living together for a while, you can at least call me ‘Will.’”

“We are not _living_ together,” said Frederick. “This is not _living_. This is marking time.”

Graham looked unperturbed. He extended his leg to rub Buster’s belly with the ball of his foot. “True, it may not be what you’re used to. Seems like everyone who’s unlucky enough to interact Hannibal has to make compromises.”

“Incarceration is not a compromise,” Frederick said.

“Are you talking about the hospital, Dr. Chilton, or my home?” asked Graham.

Graham’s calm ripostes were starting to get irritating. “You know very well what I mean.”

“I do,” Graham said. “I don’t even need to employ my ‘disorder’ to empathize with you at this point. Something I never thought I’d say if I were being honest, Dr. Chilton.”

“‘Frederick’ is fine.”

Graham smiled. “All right, then, Frederick. I can buy you your clothes tomorrow, but I’m going to the supermarket this afternoon for food. Do you have any requests?”

“Tempeh,” Frederick said without hesitation.

Graham frowned. “I’m afraid I have no idea what that is.”

Frederick bit back a frustrated sigh. “Fermented soybeans. It’s not--” he paused, “--not something to which Hannibal would likely have introduced you. I had to find a meat substitute for one of my favorite dishes. No more pancetta and tomato on sourdough.”

Graham’s brow wrinkled a moment and then he laughed. “You _can_ call it a BLT.”

“I prefer arugula or cress to lettuce,” said Frederick.

“Same principle,” Graham said, crouching to scratch the still-demanding dog near Frederick’s feet.

Frederick looked around him as though there might be food critics policing his words. “Yes, fine. BLT. We all have our little pedestrian indulgences.”

“Come to think of it,” Graham said, “I might have had a version of one at Hannibal’s. Though in retrospect it was probably a PLT.”

“‘P?’” Frederick asked, then almost immediately held out his hand, palm toward Graham. “No, don’t say it. I’m going to be sick.” As a matter of fact, he didn’t feel sick at all. He felt energized. And glad to the point of near delirium that he had never eaten anything but plant matter at Hannibal Lecter’s table.

Graham smiled, but it was rueful. “Okay. Tempeh. Anything else?”

“I, uh, trust your judgment.” Frederick said. “Will,” he added, after a heavy pause.

“Gotcha,” said Will. 

Frederick gave a small nod and turned to walk back to the bedroom when Will called after him. 

“I’ll pick up some more bacon. Just in case.”

Frederick whirled, startled, but Will was already disappearing into the kitchen.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI, this is written in 'Misericorde'-verse, so Will is queer.

His feet were cold--terribly cold--in the dream. At first, Frederick thought he was standing barefoot on his kitchen tiles, something he was loath to do. He had very sensitive feet. But the feel of the floor below him was rough, knotty. And the cold wasn’t just in the ground but in the air.

Though it felt freezing it _smelled_ warm--or, rather, like things that are warm. Fur and blood. Like pushing your face into the thick pelt of a cat (or a dog) and inhaling that powdery-sour scent of the wildness that pulses below the skin as sure as any heartbeat. At their core, animals were jagged tangles of electric instinct; domestication was only the skin wrapped around them. 

That skin was thinner for some than for others.

This was what Frederick thought as he stood, freezing, watching a scene resolve. In the dream, he stood on Will Graham’s porch, looking out across the pillowy curves of new-fallen snowbanks. To the left of the porch was his car, its lines blunted by the covering of powder. To his right, the panicked path that he had cut through the snow now slowly being subsumed in the gentle blankness. The entire landscape, studded with bare, black, shivering trees, was lit up like a stage. It seemed altogether too bright for the sole light source to be the high, round moon--bright though it was. 

Frederick watched his dream-self exhale a long stream of steaming air from his nostrils. It drifted up to wreathe the moon then was gone. He breathed in again to the sound of a strange whine, a scratching grate against his calf. Unwilling to let the captivating dream image go despite the cold, Frederick closed his eyes. 

Something invisible seemed to slam into his chest and he gasped. His eyes flew open and he found himself… actually standing on Will Graham’s porch, barefoot in the frigid night. He felt the strange prodding against his leg once more. He looked down. The dog that had approached him earlier that day--the one Will called “Buster”--looked up at him with oil-drop eyes, each of which reflected the moon in miniature. It whined again.

Frederick looked up. The moon was out, but it was nowhere near as huge or as bright as it had been in the dream. Otherwise the view before him was exactly the same. 

Another whine from the dog. It set off a concatenation of shivers in Frederick’s body: the larger muscles seizing, the tremors fluttering out to his extremities. His teeth snapped together with the sound of breaking icicles.

“Sh-sh- _it_ ,” Frederick whispered. He was not given to swearing very often, but if any situation merited it, this was certainly one of them. Pivoting on feet that had already started to go numb, he turned and opened the screen door. The main door beyond it was already flung wide, as if he had been in a particular hurry to freeze himself to death. He slipped inside and closed it as quietly as he could, leery of Will’s sleeping form on the couch. All of the dogs on the floor around the sofa raised their heads like a passel of meerkats on one of those nature discovery shows--tense throats, pricked ears, eyes flat and judging. 

Frederick looked down at Buster, who still stood by his feet. The thing had almost a querying look on its snubbed little face. 

“What do you want?” Frederick whispered. Chastised, the dog lowered its haunches and ducked its head. When he made his way back into the bedroom (nearly clipping his hip on the handle of the disused oven), Buster stood at the threshold of the kitchen and watched him go.

It wasn’t until he’d climbed back into bed that Frederick noticed the animal-smell had followed him. It had a quavering, silvery edge that was sharp and tempting. He’d gone inside, but there were still many more shuddering and vulnerable things out there in the night. What a terrible fate, he thought, to live wild-eyed and quick-breathing like that. It was no wonder prey animals’ life spans were so short--their persecuted little hearts could only go so long before giving out. In the thickly scented silence of Will Graham’s house, Frederick wondered in all seriousness if he would die there. If not shot by Jack Crawford then falling victim to his own overtaxed and sputtering system.

He pulled the quilt up to his chin like a child as he waited for morning. It was an idiotic and empty gesture, but no human being--no matter how old--ever truly gained mastery over the night.

***

Frederick woke craving more of that wretched bacon. He did hope that Will had made good on his promise to pick some up. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since he’d eaten meat, and all of the old needs and routines--at least in that respect--decided to waste no time flooding back, thinking his system was in the clear.

Though his practice dealt with broken personalities, Frederick was still a medical doctor. In residency, he’d seen cases on the books that beat long odds: spontaneous remission of cancer, infections in severe wounds that seemed to clear almost as the surgeon warmed up his bone saw for amputation. During his gastroenterology rotation, he’d seen a kid with autoimmune colitis recover so quickly he was out of the hospital a day after he’d been near-comatose from dehydration.

That was all to say that it wasn’t inconceivable his gut had simply healed on its own. When he got out of this, being the subject of a medical paper on regeneration of intestinal flora was vastly preferable to finding himself the subject of a study on the minds of cannibalistic killers. 

_Damn_.

The thought soured his mood in an instant. That was another thing he had going for his defense if he were ever caught. One is required to eat meat in order to be an effective cannibal. Perhaps it was a fluke. The last few days had been, after all, a series of flukes: the big gray dog, Will’s change of heart, Crawford’s broken ankle. Why not add another to the pile?

Absent anything to do but think, Frederick got up and dressed in the same clothes he’d worn the day before. He hoped Will would be able to pick up a few apparel items for him. To him, these garments were casual to the point of embarrassment. Frederick felt most comfortable in a suit, though he might have to get used to a state of comparative déshabille in order to distance himself from Hannibal Lecter. That in itself was less appetizing (he winced at the pun) than resuming his consumption of meat products.

When he emerged in the kitchen, Will was staring out the window over the small breakfast table, as rapt as if he himself were having the same dream Frederick had the night before. 

“Scary, isn’t it?” Will asked, unprompted, still looking out over the snow.

“What is?” Frederick asked.

Will turned toward him, shaking his head a little as if to rattle loose his reverie. “Sleepwalking.”

“What?” asked Frederick, taken aback. “You saw me?”

“I heard you,” said Will. “I heard the door, specifically. People who are awake don’t just pop out to the porch for air in the middle of the night. Barefoot, no less. You don’t like discomfort, Frederick. So I deduced.”

“Clever deduction,” Frederick said, the words entirely insincere. “And no one likes discomfort.”

“Without discomfort, we are incapable of change,” Will said. “It’s consciousness-raising.”

“I never thought I’d find myself saying this to another human being, having heard it a time or two myself,” Frederick said, “but spare me the psychobabble.”

Will smiled. “At least _I_ never said it to you.”

“Not in so many words.”

“Have you sleepwalked before?” Will asked, scooting his chair backward and standing up. 

“Not that I can recall,” Frederick said. “But, then, these are extraordinary circumstances.”

Will looked like he was just at the point of saying something, then he backed off from that edge and only nodded in response.

“It wasn’t frightening, though,” said Frederick, feeling defensive. “Interesting, maybe.”

“Were you dreaming?” asked Will. He walked over to the coffeemaker and dumped the cold grounds into the trash.

“No,” Frederick lied. It wasn’t too far off the truth--he’d seen what had been a heightened version of what was already there.

“Hm.”

“You don’t believe me?” _Methinks the doctor doth protest too much._

“I do,” Will said. “Just comparing experiences.” He was silent for a moment, the only audible sound the swishing of the dogs’ tails and the whisper of coffee grounds into a crisp new filter. “It scares me every single time.”

“Do you dream?” Frederick asked. “I mean, when it’s happening?”

“Yes,” Will said. “Always have. Except when I was in the hospital. It’s like my mind was in a cage as well.”

“That sounds--” Frederick stopped himself.

“Awful?” Will laughed.

Frederick felt a blush heating up his face. “You have to understand,” he said. “The evidence--”

Will held up one hand. “It’s okay. Hannibal is...thorough.”

“You admire him.”

“I do,” said Will. “It doesn’t mean I can’t distrust him.”

“Or despise him,” said Frederick, hissing the words through clenched teeth.

Will shook his head. “I don’t despise Hannibal. He’s, well, a fascinating case study.”

“Are you insane?”

“I’m thinking of resuming my therapy with him.”

“You _are_ insane.”

“We’ll be meeting on equal ground,” said Will. “Neither one of us under suspicion.”

“No,” Frederick said, letting the bitterness emerge unreserved, “that’s my lot.”

“Hannibal knows that I know. It’s only a matter of time,” said Will. 

“Time I don’t have,” said Frederick.

“It’s true I can’t entirely protect you,” Will told him. “But you may be underestimating your capacity for protecting yourself.”

Frederick said nothing. Will’s words had a shine of truth, especially after the run-in with the dog, out of which he’d somehow pulled himself unscathed. 

Will fought back a widening grin. “Just don’t sleepwalk to Quantico and you’ll be okay.”

“Very funny,” Frederick said. “I don’t think ‘okay’ is on the table in any fashion right now. Do you?”

“I don’t think it will be for a long time,” Will said.

They stood in silence for a couple of very long minutes, listening to the gurgle and hiss of the coffee maker.

Will broke the silence at last. “I can get you clothes today. Later, though.”

“That’s fine.”

“Jack is coming by.”

“ _What_?”

“He’s taking your things,” Will said, pulling two mugs from the cabinet. “But he has no reason to search the house.”

“And just what, exactly, am I supposed to do? Hide in the closet?”

“Is that something you’re used to?” Will asked. 

Frederick could tell he was biting back a smile. “Are you implying that you think I’m homosexual?”

“No,” Will said. “Not that there would be anything wrong with that.”

“No, well--” Frederick started. “No.”

“You might as well know that I am,” Will said.

“You’re--?” Frederick couldn’t stop himself from gawping. 

Will laughed. “Is that so hard to believe?”

“I’m sorry, of course. No. I mean, not surprising. Well, it is--ah, there’s nothing wrong with that.” Frederick was stumbling over his own tongue.

Will smiled. 

Running a thumb below his lip, trying to regain his composure, Frederick weighed his next statement.

“I promise I won’t hit on you,” Will said. He removed the steaming coffee pot from below the filter basket and filled their cups.

“No need to be crude, Mr. Graham,” said Frederick. “I wasn’t judging. It’s just--”

Will turned to face him and held out his hands, palms up. “Ask me anything.”

“Was I misreading the dynamic between you and Lecter?” He would be less uncomfortable about the line of questioning if he weren’t standing in Will Graham’s clothes in Will Graham’s kitchen--the very definition of “out of his element.” 

“You were not,” Will said. “There was-- _is_ \--a strong draw. An attraction. The relationship was only briefly… physical, but I identify with Hannibal in ways that can only be characterized as ‘intimate.’”

“I’d counsel you against having anything more to do with Hannibal Lecter, if I thought you’d pay the least attention.” Frederick held out his hand for the proffered mug of coffee. “If I may ask, why didn’t you tell me any of this at the hospital?”

Will smirked. “Beyond the obvious bitterness? Suffice to say that I believe my time there was a test of character for me. An internal struggle. Just as I believe this is yours.”

The observation made Frederick purse his lips in distaste. “Do tell. How am I bearing up?”

“I’m not attacking you. I promise,” Will said. “I’m only suggesting that the person you are at the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane is not who Frederick Chilton is.”

As much as Frederick wanted to snap back with a sour rejoinder, he found that the words stuck in his throat.

Seeing the obvious conflict on his face and taking pity on him, Will asked, “What would you like for breakfast? Tempeh on toast?” 

Frederick thought he saw Will flick a glance toward the trash can, but it could have been his imagination. _Bacon and eggs_ was the response he wanted to give, but what he said was, “Just toast is fine.”

***

Frederick was crouched in a heavily quilt-padded coat closet long before Jack Crawford’s car pulled into Will’s drive. He had quite obviously brought another representative from the BAU forensics team. With enough forethought, Will had installed him in the hall closet rather than the one in his own room because Frederick had (foolishly) used the shower in the master suite. 

He could hear snippets of conversations for about an hour--enough to be lulled into a relative sense of security before heavy footsteps stopped before the door. Frederick put a hand over his mouth and bit into the meat of his finger to stop himself from whimpering.

“Did Dr. Chilton go anywhere else in your house?” That was Jack Crawford; Frederick recognized the deep timbre immediately. Crawford’s voice was one that could go from soothing to threatening in a split second. “Did you give him anything? We need to know.”

“Everything he had he brought,” Will said. “He may have used my shampoo.” Will put an upward inflection on the last word, making the words seem guileless. 

Frederick had to grudgingly admire his effort to sell it.

“I know you don’t believe it, Will,” said Crawford. “But we need to go where the evidence points. Even you have to admit what we have is pretty overwhelming.”

“I’m not going to impede an investigation,” Will said. “But you know where I stand on this, Jack. If Hannibal can frame one person so completely--so utterly--he can set up another one to take the fall, too.”

“My hands are tied at this point,” Crawford said. “You were released because the Ripper was obviously still working while you were incarcerated. Not because of any new evidence. We’re going to keep working on Miriam. Maybe she’ll remember something, but I wouldn’t count on too much. You know how trauma is.”

“Yes,” Will said. “I know how trauma is.”

“Will,” said Crawford, “I’m sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am often enough.”

“It’s not your fault, Jack. Like you said, you’re going where the evidence leads you.”

“And right now, that’s toward Dr. Chilton.”

“It doesn’t get much more incriminating than a house full of bodies,” Will said. His tone was rich with skepticism.

Frederick wanted to leap out of his hiding place, _make_ Crawford believe him. Make him see Hannibal as he’d last seen him: still swathed in his tony bespoke plaids underneath what was probably a hand-tailored splatter suit. Face impassive, even mocking. Knowing. _Knowing_.

Instead he held his breath.

“If anything new comes up, you’ll be the first to know,” Crawford said. “Until then, we’re leaving no stone unturned. For Bev.”

“For Bev,” Will echoed. The words were hollow with both grief and dissatisfaction.

Ah, yes. Beverly Katz. The lab tech that Hannibal had julienned and laid out like sashimi. Thinking about it made Frederick nearly gag. At least… at least he was alive. A tiny--possibly unnamed and unidentifiable--part of Frederick twinged with guilt over what he’d said to Will about “marking time.” The man had no obligation to shelter him.

Then again, the man had made it more or less clear that Frederick was meant to play a part in his ridiculous endgame with Hannibal Lecter. There, hiding in Will Graham’s coat closet, Frederick vowed that he wouldn’t be anyone else’s pawn.

“Sir?”

The third voice made Frederick jump. He had to stuff his fist in his mouth to keep from crying out. 

“I’m finishing up with the car.”

_Oh, no. Not his car._

Of course they would take it. Whether he was locked up by the state or not, Lecter had taken his freedom and the FBI was just sweeping the last bits of his life into the dustpan. His Bruno Magli overnighter, his TSE cashmere sweaters, his Audemars-Piguet Millenary Tourbillon Chronograph, for god’s sake.

All comfort, all familiarity--all gathered up and carted away while he sat huddled in the cowl of Will Graham’s handmade quilt.

So it was hope instead of irritation that he found when Will said, “I’m going to catch him at it, Jack. One way or another, I’m going to nail Hannibal down.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Will he be back?” was the first thing Frederick had asked when he exited the coat closet.

“I can’t say,” Will had told him.

Afterward, despite what felt like a narrow escape, Frederick had lapsed into a sour mood. It wasn’t only that his life was burdened with too many variables, but it seemed that his life _itself_ was a variable. On the page, the mathematics of his predicament might look simple: transfer his equivalence to Hannibal Lecter. Solve for X.

But there were endless steps behind the solution, and each bore the name of one of the Ripper’s victims, further weighted with falsehood that concealed layers of evidence. ( _Evidence!_ He sneered at the word.) 

Frederick almost had to admire ( _almost_ ) the beauty of the problem, the way it resolved without tipping the balance by even a micron. He was guilty, Lecter was innocent. A complete switch of responsibility was the only way to clear his name. The task seemed insurmountable.

It certainly didn’t help that he’d refused to let Will leave to buy him clothing, just in case Jack Crawford doubled back and he was alone, unprotected. Will didn’t seem perturbed, and said he would go the next day. 

Exhausted from the constant low-level fear that had plagued him that evening, Frederick retired to bed early. He had surprised himself by being gracious enough to half-suggest that Will return to his own room, that he himself would take the couch, but he took Will’s hemming and hawing as a “no” and proceeded thusly.

He must have been more tired than he’d thought, because he was asleep nearly as soon as his head hit the pillow. In the dream this time, he stood on Will’s porch once again, though it wasn’t cold. This time trees rustled in a night wind that was as warm as a blanket on his skin. Looking past the house, Frederick found he could make out every leaf fluttering on its respective branch. The effect was like being underwater. It was intoxicating.

Equally intoxicating--if not more so--was the smell: that same wild blood-heat but magnified, nuanced. It made Frederick’s stomach clench. The desire to seek out the source of that smell was almost sexual, drawing his body with his mind pulled along behind like a child’s battered wagon. Dream-Frederick clenched his fists, closed his eyes, and breathed.

Much to his surprise, his dream avatar opened its mouth and screamed, the oddly clear sound ringing off into the night. It rolled across the night landscape and Frederick could almost feel the nocturnal animals--and the diurnal ones in their burrows--freeze with fluttering hearts. He smiled. It was an unusual feeling of power in a situation of powerlessness. If he had no control over his days, at least he could slip into a night (however unreal) in which he had sway.

If he weren’t in a dream, Frederick might have given a split-second’s thought to the unsavory truth that he had never really had any control over his days. The lunatics (Let’s be honest here. And yes, even Will Graham was crazy in his own way, just not serial-killer crazy.) he dealt with were blank walls he beat his fists against during every single session. Trying, trying. In all senses of the word. These frustrating days slid into nights that were supposed to function as decompression but ended up giving no comfort. Amid his fine things and his good music and his excellent liquor, Frederick most often ended up just plain lonely.

Luckily, he was deep in a dream and could not be bothered by these things.

What was bothering him was his stomach. So much so that it woke him up. Frederick came to curled in bed with gastric complaints so loud he was surprised Will hadn’t been awoken as well. At first, he thought that the bacon had finally come ‘round to give his battered body its due, but he realized after a moment that he was hungry. Starving. Hell, _ravenous_.

He put a hand over his belly, trying in vain to quiet it. 

_Could it be that his tiny paunch was shrinking a little?_

The thought, pleasant though it may be, was being run roughshod over by hunger pangs. Dreading the cold once he slipped out from beneath the blankets, Frederick nonetheless swung himself out of bed and padded down the hall toward the kitchen for the first _literal_ midnight snack he could remember having in years.

He hurried past Will’s sleeping form--a bundle of blankets too distastefully reminiscent of his stay in the hall closet--on the couch, and into the kitchen. The wan light of the refrigerator spilled out over his face, and the cool air felt good on skin almost feverish from hunger. Scanning the contents of the refrigerator, Frederick saw next to nothing that would suit a palate refined both by choice and by necessity. There was a carton of eggs, some cheese, far too many condiments for anything that Will Graham cooked or ate. (Maybe they were there to make his microwave meals palatable. Frederick didn’t dare look at the freezer compartment.) A few items were obvious--if oblivious--nods to Frederick’s condition, such as it was: a bag of carrots, a head of wilting lettuce. Under a bag that turned out to contain two small bell peppers was a styrofoam tray of ground beef. 

Frederick shoved the peppers out of the way and took the package out. His fingertips made pleasing squeaks on the plastic wrap as he stared at the hamburger. Looking at the fat that marbled the tiny squiggles of meat made his mouth water.

_Would Will wake up if he threw it in a pan and put it on the stove?_

Regardless, cooking the meat would attract some unwelcome canine attention, and for a reason he couldn’t seem to pin down, Frederick was feeling awfully protective of this meal that he wasn’t even supposed to have. 

He dug his fingers harder into the plastic wrap while he mulled it over, feeling the thin membrane distend like a full stomach. Oh, God, he was hungry.

The click-click of claws on the linoleum tore his attention away from the beef for a second. Buster again, its inquisitive face lit up with expectation.

“No way,” Frederick whispered at the dog. It gave a soft whine and sank to its belly on the cool floor. 

He’d been so distracted that he hadn’t noticed his fingers had punched straight through the plastic and were buried to the second knuckle in the cool, greasy mess. He withdrew his fingers slowly, looking at the sheen that painted them, the raggedy bits of meat that clung there. Closing his eyes, he raised the hand to his face and inhaled the raw, bloody scent. It was awful, it smelled like certain death from food poisoning. And before he even realized it, Frederick was scooping of the raw beef into his mouth, barely pausing to chew. 

He found himself thinking it might have lost something had he cooked it. That this was the thought that actually preceded _What the everloving fuck are you doing?_ definitely said something about his mindset. Horrified, Frederick stopped, another handful halfway to his lips.

“What is wrong with me?” he asked the open refrigerator. The heavy meat aroma on his breath was dizzying; he had a sudden and almost irrepressible urge to shove his face into the charnel-scented carton and clean it. As such he’d already eaten half. 

Instead, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand in disgust--a rather futile gesture considering that the hand was also covered with grease, and set the tray down on the floor in front of Buster. The dog looked up at him with such obvious reverence in its demeanor that Frederick felt almost abashed. 

“Go ahead,” he whispered, motioning with his hand. Buster tucked in and was licking the styrofoam clean in just short of a minute. Frederick hoped neither he nor the dog would get sick. 

The meat was sitting pleasantly in his stomach now, making him drowsy. He tucked the incriminating container underneath some discarded plastic bags in the trash can, shut the refrigerator door, and returned to the bed. He hadn’t even noticed until he climbed in that Buster had followed. 

As soon as the dog crouched, Frederick knew it was about to jump.

“No way,” he repeated, but it was too late.

Buster was padding around in circles on the quilt.

“Shoo!” Frederick said in a stage whisper.

Instead of shoo-ing, Buster plopped down and laid his head on his paws.

Frederick sighed. “Fine,” he said. “But you stay on your side.”

***

The next day, Will had to return to work. Frederick was terrified almost to the point of paralysis that Crawford would show up again, but Will assured him it was Crawford who had called him out to the scene of a(nother) bizarre murder and would have more pressing things to think about than the remnants of Frederick Chilton’s brief visit to Will’s home. 

However, Will’s absence also meant that he was alone with the horror of having consumed an entire package of hamburger _raw_. He had nothing on which to blame the decision to eat it in the first place: no dreams, no sleepwalking. He’d simply been hungry and that’s what had looked good.

Statistically, he was more likely to contract Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease from raw hamburger than, say, a good aged steak, which made him give in to a bit of helpless irritation at Will’s poor taste. How much could the federal government possibly pay him, though? The man was probably living hand-to-mouth.

Frederick decided to shuffle his fears off to the side and do a bit of digging into what, exactly, Will Graham had. He went through each room of the house--not _digging_ , necessarily--just perusing what was visible. He was pleased to see that, despite the lived-in look of the place, Will did not appear to be sentimental at all. The various implements of his leisure time made up most of what could be called décor: fly tying rigs, snowshoes, leashes and harnesses hung like the world’s saddest piece of modern art by the door. The only thing that might have qualified as a keepsake was one of those model ships in a bottle: a two-masted sloop with paper sails and waxed thread for rigging.

And he had books. A lot of them. It wasn’t their presence that surprised Frederick but their subject matter. Perhaps he had expected Will to own a moldering rack of _Psychology Today_ , old forensic textbooks, _The Compleat Angler_. Instead he found a number of classics both ancient and modern. _The Golden Bough, Carmilla, Stranger in a Strange Land_.

Frederick pulled down a well-thumbed copy of Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_. It was something that he had heard of but had not read (his humanities requirements in college had been fulfilled with an audit of a couple of twentieth-century literature classes). He settled into a battered wing chair to have a look.

The poetic translation was old and somewhat laughable, but from what he could see it was another creation myth. What mainly came through was the poet’s contempt for his own era. Line after line, Ovid railed against men who were fallen and debased--the worst of them some guy named Lycaon. That got Frederick wondering exactly what the man had done that made him so despised. He read on:

_I’ll try, said he, and if a god appear,_  
 _To prove his deity shall cost him dear._  
 _’Twas late; the graceless wretch my death prepares,_  
 _When I shou’d soundly sleep, opprest with cares:_  
 _This dire experiment he chose, to prove_  
 _If I were mortal, or undoubted Jove:_  
 _But first he had resolv’d to take my pow’r;_  
 _Not long before, but in a luckless hour,_  
 _Some legates, sent from the Molossian state,_  
 _Were on a peaceful errand come to treat:_  
 _Of these he murders one, he boils the flesh;_  
 _And lays the mangled morsels in a dish:_  
 _Some part he roasts; then serves it up, so drest,_  
 _And bids me welcome to this humane feast._

Frederick shut the book and crammed it back on the shelf as if it had bitten him. 

_Cannibalism._

That was the transgression that got Lycaon permanently on the gods’ list of _personae non gratae_. Frederick felt a little sick. He hoped it wasn’t the hamburger, coming up at last to wreak its vengeance.

***

Will came home very late that night, burdened with two bags full of clothing...and a story. 

Frederick had to grudgingly admit the man had at least a modicum of taste--at least in terms of gear for roughing it, as it were--as he pawed through the selection. A couple of pairs of rip-stop trousers, two or three moisture-wicking t-shirts, a sweater, two microfleece half-zip pullovers. The only objectionable item was a quilted down coat the style and shade of which Frederick would never have looked at twice. Yes, they were warm, but there was nothing cosmopolitan about nylon. He would consent to being a little colder in wool for the sake of what his college girlfriend Linda--she of the heated eyelash curler worthy of an Inquisitor’s dungeon--called “suffering for beauty.” It suggested the sort of frail, consumptive loveliness that Linda herself had embodied. Frederick’s cleverly buried romantic tendencies had snagged the phrase and held onto it long after he’d ended things with Linda. It cropped up with a regularity that might have been embarrassing had he ever spoken it aloud. 

He frowned a little and grunted as he examined the coat, but said nothing more. 

“You’re welcome,” said Will. “Did the dogs eat?”

“Did the dogs eat what?” Frederick asked. 

“Their food.”

Frederick blinked. “ I wouldn’t have the first clue as to where it is.”

Will seemed unperturbed. “I’ll show you for next time.”

Now there was an unsavory thought. Frederick tried not to imagine himself wrestling an enormous bag of foul-smelling kibble out of a pantry.

Will shed his coat and went into the kitchen, the dogs on his heels, ravenous as though they hadn’t been fed in a week. Frederick heard their whines and felt an ever-so-slight guilt grab him by the sleeve of the plaid shirt.

Suddenly he couldn’t wait to get changed.

“Are you hungry?” Will asked.

It was a very conversational tone to use with the animals. At least he didn’t indulge in baby-talk. A small mercy, Frederick thought. 

Will opened the cabinet under the sink and hauled out a monstrous bag. It must cost half of Will’s consulting fees to feed this brood of beasts. 

“Frederick, are you hungry?”

Snapped out of his horrified reverie at the size of the food bag, Frederick raised his head. “Sorry, I thought you were talking to the dogs.”

Will laughed. “That’s the great thing about dogs. You talk to them, they won’t talk back. No offense.”

“None taken,” Frederick said, offended. “Spend too long talking to dogs, you may forget how to talk to people. No offense.”

Will’s laugh was practically a guffaw this time. “None taken.”

“And yes, in answer to your question,” Fredrick said. “I could eat.”

Will hefted the bag and poured a hail of skittering, meat-flavored pebbles over the linoleum. Most of them missed the stainless steel bowls set out in a line. The dogs didn’t seem to care, snuffling and knocking the bowls out of the way as they hoovered up the food. 

Frederick wrinkled his nose. 

After he’d replaced the huge bag (Frederick had already decided to plead injury despite the fact that he was now walking without the cane), Will went to the fridge. “You know you’re more than welcome to cook while I’m gone,” he said.

“It slipped my mind,” said Frederick. “I was reading.”

Will looked over, his face illuminated by a cool wedge of light from the open refrigerator. “So you’ve found my modest library.”

“You have some unexpected selections, Mr. Graham.”

“Expecting more of a philistine palate?”

Frederick felt a small flush of shame creep up his neck. He adjusted the collar of Will’s shirt around his neck. “I wasn’t expecting Ovid,” he said.

“No offense?” asked Will, his tone light, even teasing.

“Indeed,” said Frederick.

“ _The Metamorphoses_ ,” said Will. “Surprisingly useful from a profiler’s point of view. Even if only to show that people don’t really change. Or, rather, even when they do change, they don’t change.”

Frederick wasn’t sure he quite understood, so he stayed silent.

“Speaking of change, this homicide was weird,” said Will.

“If you’ll pardon my saying so,” Frederick said, “it seems to me that all the cases you come by are ‘weird.’”

“True enough,” said Will. He slapped a couple of plastic-wrapped slabs of tempeh on the counter.

“How was it ‘weird?’”

“It looked like an animal attack,” Will said. “Significant trauma associated with mauling. But these bites and claw marks were deep. And exhibited none of the ragged edges associated with the kind of shaking that a dog or even a bear would do.”

“What do you think it is?” Frederick asked. 

“Well, obviously it’s a person. But this person wants to _be_ an animal, and uses weapons accordingly. You’d probably have a great time trying to pry open his head.”

“No doubt,” said Frederick, entirely unsure whether or not he wanted to do any prying open of heads any time soon. The whole Hannibal thing had thrown him for the proverbial loop.

“Hm,” said Will. “I may have to try some of this tempeh. I could have sworn I had some hamburger…”


	6. Chapter 6

On the day of Will’s first post-incarceration appointment with Hannibal Lecter, Frederick saw the dog again. He didn’t actually know it was the day of Will’s appointment, which was probably a good thing because on top of that seeing the huge, shaggy thing dancing outside his window would have shaken him clean out of his skin.

It was Buster who noticed, of course. (Yes, all right, the little dog had begun—not without some initial protest from Frederick—to sleep in the crook of his knees as he lay huddled against the cold in Will’s bed.)

That morning, Buster sailed off the bed, a momentarily airborne sausage. It was shocking that he didn’t break his tiny legs hitting the cold wood floor. But no, he scrabbled for purchase for a second then ran to the window, barking up a storm. 

“Dog,” Frederick said, swinging out of bed. Then: “Dog!”

The wolfy-looking mutt had its rear paws planted in the snow just below the second floor window. It was looking up at Frederick, brazen as you please, with a canine sort of smile on its face. Its breath came in puffs and clumps of snow flew from forepaws that were popping up and down, up and down. To Frederick, it looked for all the world like it wanted another piece of him.

He stumbled back from the window, nearly kicking Buster in the process. “Will!” He thumped down the hall, forgetting his slippers, still calling. “Will!”

All he heard from the guest bathroom was the sound of a shower running. 

“Dammit,” Frederick said. Over the sound of the rushing water came a noise like a generator, a low rumble. He hadn’t seen one around the house, but the impression was dispelled when he made it to the front foyer. All of the dogs were standing at the door, paws raised, tails tense and quivering. Their growling rose and fell in waves of white noise.

Frederick was seized with panic. Was the dog still out there? If so, would it run away if he let Will’s dogs out? Would it hurt one of them? 

_No, he absolutely refused to believe that the snap of pain in his chest was a tiny tug of anxiety on behalf of little Buster._

“Will?” he tried again. There was no sound from the bathroom but the steady hiss of the water.

Frederick pushed his way through the mass of canine bodies, trying to get at the window. The snow was a blank plain, the tire tracks from Will’s car only faint suggestions. The porch was spattered red.

For the second time in two minutes, Frederick lurched backward, managing this time to step on a tender paw and earning a yelp.

“Everything okay?” Will asked. He had a towel wrapped around his waist and was scrubbing his unruly hair with another. He’d obviously just sprayed himself down with aftershave; the smell of the cheap stuff clung to him like a cloud.

“The dog!” Frederick said, trying not to cough. “The one that bit me. Or tried to. Whatever. In any case, it was out there.”

Will gave him a dubious look. 

“There’s something on the porch,” said Frederick, starting to feel a little foolish. 

The huddle of dogs parted as Will walked toward the door. They looked up at him, noses raised, worshipful and expectant. “It’s a rabbit,” he said. 

“Oh, ugh,” Frederick said. “Don’t tell me that thing _left_ it there.”

“It could have been injured,” said Will. “Crawled up on the porch last night and died here.”

“Ugh.”

“I think you’ve seen worse.”

“Don’t remind me,” Frederick said. In the same measure as he was disgusted, he was also oddly curious. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the big dog had left it there for him. As a warning? 

“I guess we need to be on the lookout for something out there,” Will said.

“You believe me?”

“Better safe than sorry. I should bury that thing so the dogs don’t get at it.”

“Yes,” said Frederick. “Please.”

As much as part of him wanted to go out and see the “gift,” he held the dogs back from the door when Will got dressed and headed out into the cold to get rid of it. 

Frederick watched as Will carted the dead thing out into the brush. The limp rabbit swung like a pendulum, hypnotic.

“I’ll be late tonight,” Will said as he came back in, stamping the snow from his boots at the threshold. 

Frederick nodded. He had been prepared to fight down panic at the announcement, but found himself less perturbed than he expected. God forbid, though, that he ever get used to this arrangement. It was just temporary. Just until Lecter was behind bars.

“Can you…?” Will said, rubbing his cold-reddened nose.

“Can I…?”

“That is, uh, could you feed the dogs tonight?”

“Oh!” Frederick said. “Oh. Yes. Sure.”

Will’s face split in the first genuine grin Frederick thought he’d ever seen from the man. “Great.”

After Will left, Frederick settled into the lumpy armchair with a volume he figured had to be a less anxiety-inducing book than the Ovid. It turned out to cause the exact opposite of that itchy tension: overwhelming boredom. Fielding a little guilt, he decided to indulge in a nap. More often than he would ever say, Frederick used to close and lock the door of his office, sit in his tufted leather desk chair with a lapful of dry, academic papers, and let his chin drift down onto his chest. If his patrician nose served as an echo chamber for his light snores, he himself would never know. 

Now, he thought, some third-rate halfwit could be occupying that office in his stead. As a matter of pride, Frederick had never kept a deputy administrator. They would have had to import someone from another facility—in D.C., most likely—to run the place. Into the ground, most likely. Frederick bristled. Then again, it was of some comfort that there were no truly juicy cases on the rotation at the hospital. Will Graham (now his inadvertent benefactor and didn’t _that_ still sting a bit?) had been freed and the real Chesapeake Ripper was calmly holding court in his own overstyled office. Once he was caught, and Frederick’s name was cleared, Hannibal would belong to the hospital. He’d be Frederick’s forever and he’d never, ever leave. 

It was on that less depressing thought that Frederick drifted off.

And dreamed. 

The day was gray, the horizon pasted over with low smudges of cloud. Dream-Frederick stepped off the porch and for a moment thought he’d fallen because he was so close to the ground. Then he turned to look back at the porch and saw reflected in the window glass the face of the big gray dog.

But it wasn’t looking _out_ at him from inside. It _was_ him. Frederick’s jaw dropped open and the mouth of the dog in the glass dropped open as well, a violent red tongue unfurling. He clicked his mouth shut so hard he nearly nipped off the tip of that tongue with strong jaws. Frederick turned—curiously no less nimble on four feet than he had been on two—and examined his reflection more closely.

He wasn’t the same dog. Dream-dog-Frederick’s fur was dark brown, nearly black. His eyes were blacker. And somehow, now that he was on equal ground, he was much less afraid of running into the other dog.

Frederick felt something he had never felt before in his life. He felt _fierce_. While considering whether or not to go up to the window and examine himself more closely, a breeze kicked up and brought with it an incredible scent. Visceral and thick, with the smallest hint of sweetness. Dream-dog-Frederick forgot about his reflection, wheeled and set off to follow that scent. 

Strings of saliva fell from his tongue into the snow and he didn’t care. All that mattered was finding the source of that smell.

If the dog part didn’t know where it was headed, the human part of Frederick figured it out very quickly. He was loping off in the direction of the hillock where Will had disposed of the mutilated rabbit. That had to be the source.

Man-Frederick’s mind rebelled. Dog-Frederick was having none of that insurgency. And the smell was far too good. Better than the bacon by half. _Rabbit tartare_.

Man-Frederick laughed in his head. The dog was silent, every muscle quivering.

And then he was on it. The thing was frozen, tougher than jerky, but bracing it with huge forepaws he found he could tear it apart after only a few seconds of worrying at it. He could hear the dogs inside the house barking, screaming, but he paid them no mind. The rabbit was dissolving in his jaws. He wrenched the hide from its back and fit his canines in between the delicate ribs, then shook his head once and neatly broke the thing’s back. The sound made his haunches grow quivery and weak, and he had to lower his belly into the snow as he probed with his tongue for the sweet marrow in the rabbit’s spine.

 _Ecstasy_.

 _Ecstasy_.

Man-Frederick tried to be repulsed, but he was pushed too far back in the mind of the animal to muster the energy.

It was Buster leaping into his lap and licking his face that woke him up at last. After he was startled out of the chair, sending the dog tumbling to the floor, he felt a little bad. But it was only when he bent to give Buster a little pat on the head after he’d bounded back up again that Frederick felt the freezing wetness against his ankles. His pants legs were crusted with snow, only starting to drip in bell-shaped puddles around his feet. Shoeless as they were, said feet were freezing to the point of pain. 

Frederick toppled backward, the musty cushion of the chair puffing dust up around him. He sneezed, then watched a small tuft of white fur drift from his mouth to the floor in the watery daylight. 

It had to have been Buster’s... _right_? 

With a hand over his mouth, Frederick barely made it to the kitchen before he was throwing up into the sink. He closed his eyes and left them closed for a long time, even after the retching had stopped. He didn’t want to look, didn’t want to witness a mess of gore—raw gristle and splinters of rabbit bone. 

When he opened one eye, though, it was just the bland yellow spatter of half-digested toast. He nearly sank to the floor in relief, a sensation that extended to cover his gratitude that Will hadn’t seen him this time. No doubt he’d been wandering out in the snow for a good long while. But he hadn’t been on his belly in it, and he certainly hadn’t been eating a dead rabbit. Frederick felt a sudden surge of anger at the big gray dog. It had managed to bait him twice now—once with the corpse on the porch and then again, inadvertently, with an idiotic dream that had him traipsing unarmed and shoeless through the winter wilds of Wolf Trap. There was a tiny, irrational part of his mind that wanted to believe it wasn’t so inadvertent, but Frederick knew too much about the human subconscious to really believe that dogs could control dreams. 

He had just been triggered, that was all. Perhaps the anxiety he hadn’t felt when Will left had bubbled to the surface in the form of this “episode.”

Frederick wrinkled his nose, and set about washing the mess down the sink. He did not return to the chair or the book again.

***

True to his word, Will came in at around nine that evening. Frederick hadn’t planned on giving anything other than a cursory greeting, but Will seemed in the mood to talk.

“That was interesting,” he said, pouring a small pan of boiling water precariously into a mug for tea. He gestured to the mug—a question—but Frederick demurred.

“The case?”

“Let’s say my own case,” Will said.

It didn’t take but a second or two for Frederick to catch on. “Hannibal.”

One corner of Will’s mouth quirked up in a sly half-smile. “You can save your warnings,” he said.

“Oh, I know,” said Frederick. “I have never been able to influence you.” The last statement was tinged with no small amount of self-pity.

“I was still coming out from under Hannibal’s influence. Completing my metamorphosis.”

“Only to go right back under that influence?” Frederick asked. “I presume I don’t need to tell you about the fragility of the empathetic mind.”

“You’re right,” Will said. “I can’t hide or subvert my... _disorder_. I can only reorient it.”

Frederick huffed. “I consider myself fairly astute, but I was blindsided by Hannibal more than once.”

The look Will shot him said that he was in doubt, to say the least, of Frederick’s perceptive powers. That _hurt_. He had to take a few breaths to keep from going immediately on the defensive. He was too curious about what had happened during Will’s “appointment” with the man who had framed both of them.

“Nobody knows that better than I do,” Will said. “We do. But our eyes have been forcibly opened. You and I are party to information that no one else has.”

“And look where it landed us,” Frederick said, fighting off the horror at his slight glow of pride that he was party to such exclusive knowledge. _At the cost of having dead men arranged like_ objets d’art _all over his home_.

“You’re restricted right now, but you won’t be for long,” Will said.

“Because of you?”

“Because of me.”

“Taking on Hannibal.”

“Taking on Hannibal on his own level.” Will raised the teacup to his lips, holding Frederick’s gaze.

“Oh, dear God,” Frederick said. “You’re not going to fight him. You’re going to _become_ him.”

“I’ve already become what I am,” Will said. “My advantage is that Hannibal doesn’t know what that is.”

Frederick sat down in one of the squeaky kitchen chairs. “And just how do you know that?”

“He’s blinded. Just like I was.”

“By trust?” Frederick said. “I don’t think so.”

“Not by trust,” said Will. “By love.”

“ _Love_? Hannibal Lecter is a cold-blooded killer. Not to mention a cannibal, for God’s sake. He’s incapable of loving anyone.”

“I know that,” Will said. “But, once again, he doesn’t. Everything he did to me he did because he believed it was the best thing for me. Misplaced to say the least, but he accomplished his goal. He transformed me. Just not in the way he thinks.”

“That’s, if you’ll pardon my saying it, Mr. Graham, one hell of a gamble.”

“It happens to be the only one we’ve got,” said Will. “More specifically, the only one _you’ve_ got.”

Frederick clenched his fists. He didn’t want to admit to himself the fulfillment of a pattern in his life: his confidence in his own control up until the point that the rug was taken out from under him, landing him hard on his ass every single time. This time with possibly fatal consequences. Even more than that, he did not want to admit that Will was perfectly correct: he had only one hope and that was Will’s ability to slip into Hannibal Lecter’s blind spot. If it even existed.

“So what, exactly,” Frederick asked, “do you intend to make Hannibal think he’s turned you into?”

“An animal,” Will said. “Something like our current killer.”

“Is Hannibal controlling him?” Frederick asked.

“No,” said Will, grimacing as he took a swig of the cooling tea. “This killer thinks he is controlling the animal he wants to be, when it’s the animal controlling him.”

Frederick leaned back in his chair, aghast. “So in the meantime, your grand plan is to make yourself into Hannibal’s _pet_?”

“In as many words, I guess so.”

“Oh, God,” Frederick said. “I’m _fucked_.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At long last, a full wolf-out. For [chiltonism](http://archiveofourown.org/users/chiltonism).

“Clinical lycanthropy,” Will said. They had been talking again about the “beast killer.”

Will’s diagnosis still managed to shock Frederick despite his ongoing intense interest in abnormal psychology. Maybe it was because he was starting to think of his _own_ psychology as tending a bit toward the abnormal. “Are you sure?” he asked. “From what I’ve read, sufferers of clinical lycanthropy don’t build mechanical exoskeletons to fulfill their delusions. In fact, I believe it’s mostly beyond them.”

“Hannibal has a theory,” said Will.

Frederick rolled his eyes. “Hannibal doesn’t have theories. He has certainties.”

“Well, that’s what we’re counting on, actually. He said he treated a boy a few years ago who was convinced he was a predator animal.”

“Was the therapy successful?”

“Hannibal thought it was,” said Will.

Frederick huffed. “Which means the poor kid probably ended up worse off than he started.”

“Here’s the thing,” Will said. “He’s still in the area. The kid’s name is Randall Tier, and he works at the Smithsonian. In specimen assemblage.”

“He puts together dinosaurs?” Frederick barked a laugh.

“Among other things,” said Will. “The tooth marks on the bodies don’t match those of any living predator.”

“So you’re not saying he made up a monster. You’re saying he resurrected one.”

Will frowned. “Possibly.”

“It’s a stretch,” said Frederick. “Clinical lycanthropy is degenerative. If your Randall Tier was untreated—which, if he was seeing Hannibal Lecter, is as good as the same thing—he should be in an institution by now, not in...well, an _institution_.”

Will laughed. “Still, it can be reversed with proper medication. If Tier was schizophrenic and it’s now controlled, he could be moderate- to high-functioning.”

“If he was high-functioning, Will, he wouldn’t have escalated to killing, much less _as_ the animal he believes he embodies.”

“Unless he was taught to control it.”

Frederick’s eyes widened. “You’re thinking Hannibal ‘cured’ him by channeling his delusions. Reorienting him toward homicide as an outlet.”

“Let’s just say I wouldn’t put it past him,” Will said.

“I wouldn’t put anything past him,” said Frederick. “I really, really hate that man.”

“You’re not alone in that,” said Will. “But at least you agree he’s a man.”

“As opposed to…?”

“As opposed to the Devil himself.”

“If you’re asking if I think he’s a supernatural being of some sort, I assure you, I don’t.”

“No, no,” Will said. “I took you for many things, but credulous isn’t one of them.”

“Oh, really?” Frederick asked. “And what, exactly, did you take me for?”

Will smiled and ducked his head. “Maybe someone with excessive confidence. At least in his own abilities. A proud man.”

Frederick took a breath and bit the inside of his cheek. Before Hannibal—before he was framed—he _had_ been absolutely confident in his abilities. In his techniques. Now, sitting trapped in Will Graham’s snowbound cottage, surrounded by a smelly sea of wiggling and sighing canines, he had to allow in the painful thought that he had merely been projecting that confidence. Pretending to be something he wasn’t, and pretending so hard that he’d convinced himself. It took one push by Hannibal Lecter to send that careful construction tumbling, after all. 

“I suppose you think I’ve gotten my just deserts,” Frederick said. “The mighty brought low.”

Will shook his head. “I don’t resent you, Frederick. I resented my situation, which you were part of. But it was Hannibal who put me there. Same as you. He’s leveled the ground between us.”

“That’s all well and good for you,” said Frederick. “Your name is clear. I’m still being hunted, hiding here like an animal.”

Will grinned. “Maybe that’s a good thing.”

“Are you joking?”

“I don’t mean being made to hide,” Will said. “I meant being an animal. Hannibal transformed Randall Tier, and look how much power he has.”

Frederick pursed his lips. “That’s not a terribly good example. He encouraged the man’s psychosis.”

“Or, if you look at it differently, he made him more himself. He did the same to me, after all.”

“You’re suggesting that it’s my nature to cower?”

“Not at all,” said Will. “I’m just suggesting that you may not know quite yet what the end result of your transformation will be.”

“If it’s anything more than a paranoid wreck, please do let me know.” He fell into a frustrated silence. 

Will was silent for a time, too, almost as if indulging Frederick’s fit of self-pity.

“You know,” Frederick said at last, “ancient civilizations believed more often than not that transformation was a punishment, not a gift.”

“Ovid again?”

“Let’s say it’s been on my mind.”

“What about Apollo and Daphne?” Will asked. “She begged the gods to save her from his lecherous advances, and they turned her into a tree.”

“How is being stuck in one place forever a gift?”

“Looking at the current situation, point taken,” said Will. 

“And even if Tier’s metamorphosis is a gift, animals don’t have the power over humans that they used to.”

“I disagree,” said Will. “He’s an animal who still looks like a man. He can hide in plain sight.”

“The only way I could hide in plain sight is if I actually _were_ an animal,” Frederick grumped. He was a little unsettled, thinking back to the dream in which he had turned into the large black dog. Even more unsettling was the sudden sense of kinship he felt with both Will and with Randall Tier. Lecter had transformed Tier into a beast, singularly focused on fulfilling his fantasy. Will, if his plan went through, would be his own brand of disguised threat. 

So there was also a strange comfort in the thought: that somehow he was in a larval stage in his own transfiguration. That he might yet have some part to play in bringing Hannibal Lecter down. 

Will interrupted his reverie. “Frederick,” he said, “I think that’s the first time I’ve seen you smile since you got here.”

***

For the first time, Frederick thought he might actually be _glad_ to see Will go when he left that morning. The entire house reeked of that wretched aftershave. Despite the cold, Frederick threw open what windows he could reach. What was left when the cologne dissipated, however, was a low animal reek that Frederick was half-tempted to think Will tried to cover with his awful choice of toiletries. It seemed like more than just the dogs, though—something more _wild_. 

The smell that lingers when everything human is removed. 

Frederick shuddered, remembering the scent that had drifted toward him over the snow-clotted hillocks during his sleepwalking episode the other day. Wild, indeed.

Not because of cold, but because of the association, he shut the windows again. The bedroom window latched with a satisfying clack that almost, but not quite, covered the sound of a boot on the porch.

Frederick froze in a half-flinch, waiting in a parodic, heart-hammering, horror movie way for something else to happen. One of the boards on the front porch groaned. Frederick groaned, too. The last thing he thought before passing out was, _This is getting pathetic_.

He was immediately back up again, though. Well, not entirely up. Crawling, it seemed. He was breathing hard, nails clicking on the wood floor. 

_Was he dreaming again_?

Sure enough, when he raised his head to the level of the glass, he could see two black canine eyes staring back at him from under a ridge of furred brow. The force of his terror at the possibility of being discovered sleepwalking by Will’s mystery guest was enough to send him—dog or not—slapping belly-down to the floor. 

The whine he heard deep in his own throat sounded like protest, though. The dog was in control again, and he rose on his haunches and sniffed the air. Like a faulty burglar alarm, the other dogs finally revved up enough and set to barking, something Frederick could see the visitor was ignoring as he walked into the living room on four tentative paws. 

As if on cue, the dogs fell silent. He felt a stab of trepidation as they wheeled to face him. But they didn’t circle or growl—only sat and stared. The human visitor was staring, too.

Before he could see her clearly, dog-Frederick could smell that it was a woman. She wore a much, much finer scent than did Will Graham, but he could also smell what lay underneath it—something both feminine and intrinsically _human_ , light at the same time it was raw-edged and spicy. It bloomed like a fractal lattice across Frederick’s field of vision: red-orange with a slow pulse. 

It made dog-Frederick curious nearly to the point of frenzy. It made man-Frederick squirm, a not entirely un-delicious sensation.

He padded over to the windowsill and rose up to put his paws on its slight ledge, pressing a cold nose against colder glass. The woman had long, ash-brown hair and wide blue eyes. Her perfect brows drew in over a well-shaped nose...yes, okay, Frederick was laying it on a little thick in his head, but she _was_ a stunner.

“You’re a big boy, aren’t you?” said the woman, pressing an ungloved hand against the cold pane. Much to his humiliation, dog-Frederick licked at the slow-fading palm print. But it made her smile.

She rose and looked behind her, even though Frederick had not heard a thing. Buster wriggled up to his left hind paw and whined. The spell was about to break, and Frederick would have done anything at that moment to make it last.

“Maybe I’ll see you again,” the woman said. Then she was gone—jogging off the porch and into the snow—pulling on dark gloves that were probably kidskin. Dog-Frederick was entranced. Man-Frederick thought he might actually be in love.

Unfortunately, that intense attraction was driven to the back of his mind when Frederick awoke, completely naked, on the rug in Will’s parlor. He lunged for the old afghan on the couch, whipping his head back and forth to make sure the woman was gone. Had she been there at all?

Frederick wrapped the ratty blanket around his waist and shuffled off in search of his clothes. He found them in the bedroom in a pile—as if he had simply evaporated out of them. Confusion made him sit down hard, feeling the cool air of the house on his bare shoulders, rubbing the material of his shirt between his fingers as if he expected himself to materialize back inside it.

“What the _hell_ is happening to me?” He was either teleporting or his sleepwalking dreams were getting more and more bizarre, and one of those was a much likelier explanation. 

As if to offer reassurance, Buster trotted up and thwacked at Frederick’s side with his nub of a tail. His hand went to the little dog’s head of its own accord, scratching at the powdery soft fur behind its ears.

He looked at the hand like it had betrayed him. Independently moving limbs, insane mid-day stripping, hallucinating sexy women—ever since he’d come to Will Graham’s house, Frederick felt more and more that he was losing control of either his body or his sanity. And one of those was a _much_ likelier explanation.

Shaken, he rose to his feet and picked up his sweater. A miniature snowfall of dark dog hair came free and filtered down to the floor in the watery winter light.

***

Frederick had not only changed his sweater but shoved it in the rattletrap washing machine before Will got back. He wanted every trace of that dark fur gone. How long had he been out? Obviously long enough for him to take off every stitch of clothing and have one of the dogs nest in it. He suppressed a little pang of irritation that it had been one of the other dogs and not...well, “his” dog, Buster.

 _Clinical lycanthropy_. That was what Will had said about Randall Tier. Frederick might have indulged a thought or two about subconscious lycanthropy, but that was too much Freud and too much Jung smashed together in a very uneasy mix. Frederick had liked to think of himself as a progressive analyst. _Had_. Because that was a lifetime ago. And his own self-analysis was obviously inadequate.

“Did you dream?” he asked Will as he came in that evening carrying a load of groceries. “I mean, while you sleepwalked?”

“You should know that, Frederick,” Will said.

“Listen, I was perfectly within my rights to think that they were delusions and hallucinations at the time,” Frederick said, crossing his arms. He moved a single foot to walk over and help unload the groceries, but felt foolish and stopped.

“Yes,” Will said. “Always the same thing.”

Though it had been a ruse, toward the end of his incarceration Will had opened up a bit more to Frederick, giving him tantalizing hints at a complex psychological condition. The condition, of course, was still complex...just not in the way that Frederick had thought at the time. 

“The stag,” Frederick said.

“Got it in one.”

Frederick scowled.

Will, holding a bag of apples, smiled. “I’m not making fun of you.”

Frederick was silent, trying not to pout.

“So you’re still sleepwalking,” Will said.

“Either that or I’m having hallucinations and delusions of my own.” Frederick couldn’t help the note of desperation that crept into his voice.

“What are you seeing?”

“A dog.”

Will turned his head, hiding behind a cough, but the cover didn’t last for long. He cracked up.

“I’m glad it’s funny to you,” said Frederick.

“No, no,” Will said. “It just makes sense. You’re surrounded by dogs. Buster seems to have taken a liking to you.”

Frederick fought down a blush that threatened to rise above his collar. “I am not dreaming about _your_ dogs.”

“What’s wrong with my dogs?” Will was desperately trying to keep a straight face.

“Nothing—” Frederick started. “Oh. Ha, ha.”

“Is it the dog you saw behind my house? The one that left the rabbit?”

Frederick looked up, shocked that Will was suddenly taking him seriously. “No. It’s another one.”

“Are _you_ the dog?” Will asked. “I mean, in the dreams?”

“Were you the stag?”

“Some part of me was.”

“Well, I— I think this dog _represents_ me, somehow.” He decided to leave it at that; the truth was still too uncomfortable. Frederick had never been one of those people who grew wings or gills in their dreams. He had certainly never turned into a dog. “Like we talked about the other day. Hiding in plain sight.” He thought about the woman at the window. 

“Or wanting to,” Will said.

“Or that. It would certainly be easier.”

“Easy isn’t on the menu with Hannibal out there.”

Frederick didn’t even try to hide it; he burst out laughing. “Hannibal,” he said. “‘On the menu.’ Oh, God.”

Will joined in. 

“Well, that could be one explanation,” said Frederick. “Hannibal doesn’t prey on animals. So it seems safe to dream I'm one.”

Will grinned. “I think you forgot one thing, though.”

“What’s that?” Frederick asked.

“Dogs are hunters, too.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is 75% slapstick. Next chapter is going to be brutal as f**k.

If he thought about it, which he had more than ample time to do, Frederick could see it made sense. He was experiencing the very definition of a self-perpetuating cycle, and though he could see the symptoms he was reluctant to acknowledge the cause.

The truth was, though, Frederick was scared. He was more frightened than he had been in his life, and obviously Will’s apparent vested interest in the protection of that life did very little to allay his fear. Terror produced fainting produced dreams produced terror and so on and so forth. If that could be subjectively seen by even a layman as “going nuts,” then Frederick was doing so. 

He became convinced of it on the night that the dream-woman came back. He had been sitting in the kitchen, thank God, finishing up a late-night cup of coffee when he heard the knock on the front door. 

“Frederick!” Will hissed.

Frederick was already in the pantry, clutching the too-hot mug and trying not to whimper. He shook and spilled the coffee down the front of his sweater as he heard the door open.

“Can I help you?” Will said.

_Good. Not Crawford._ Frederick allowed himself to relax a little. But it was only a moment, until he heard the voice.

“You’re Will Graham?” 

It was a woman. And he _knew_ that voice, though it had only said one thing. _You’re a big boy, aren’t you?_ Frederick fumbled and nearly dropped the coffee mug, splashing more of the scalding liquid onto the linoleum.

“No way in _hell_ ,” Frederick whispered.

“And may I ask who you are?” he heard Will say.

Again that voice. It was incredible. “My name is Margot Verger. You don’t know me, but I believe we’re seeing the same psychiatrist.”

Frederick’s eyes widened. Another patient of Lecter’s. Honestly, the man was so invested in Will, Frederick had forgotten that Hannibal was still practicing. He had to wonder in exactly what way Lecter would endeavor to pervert Margot Verger’s sense of self, as he had done with Will. As he had apparently done with Randall Tier. 

The anger was on him just as suddenly as the irrepressible need to see her. To confirm her existence, even though it meant he was solidly out of his mind. Frederick set his mug on one of the wire shelves and pushed the pantry door open little by little. He sent a mental note of thanks out to the aether that Will was a bit of a handyman and kept his hinges oiled. 

How he would be able to open the back door without being heard was another problem altogether, but Frederick would have to wing it. It was imperative that he see the dream-woman. Margot. An old-fashioned name. Singular. Frederick smiled before he remembered he was standing in the middle of Will Graham’s kitchen looking for a way out into the accumulating snow. 

“Can I offer you something to drink?” 

The volume of Will’s voice told Frederick he was about halfway to the kitchen. Panicked, he turned around and ran back into the pantry, wincing as his socks soaked up the now-chilled coffee.

“I have coffee,” Will said. “A little bit of whiskey, though I’m not sure it’s up to your standards, Miss Verger.”

Luckily, Margot’s voice still floated toward Frederick’s ears from the front sitting room. “I think you’ll find my standards are not what you expect, Mr. Graham.”

To his credit, Will didn’t flinch when he opened the pantry door and saw Frederick standing against the shelves with wide eyes and soggy feet. He only blinked a couple of times and shut the door. “I lied,” Will said. “Out of coffee. Whiskey it is.”

Frederick waited through the clinking of glasses (mismatched, no doubt) and up until he heard Will’s footsteps receding down the hall once again. In his mad rush to get out of the pantry, Frederick’s foot slipped on the puddle of coffee and he went sprawling onto the kitchen floor.

“What was that?” Margot asked.

“Dog,” said Will.

Swearing under his breath, Frederick scrambled to his feet. He had his hand on the doorknob when he thought better of it and went to the window. He’d made the right choice; the pane whispered open, admitting a blast of cold air. Frederick pushed the screen out of the window frame, letting it land silently in the cottony pile of fresh powder below.

For some stupid reason, he had not expected it to be so cold when he tumbled out, landing on top of the fallen screen. Once he righted himself he was still thigh-deep in the frigid drifts. The night was soundless—no wind, the snow swirling in tight loops to the ground—so Frederick figured it was safe to leave the window open a crack. Toes already numb and fingers well on their way, he fumbled the pane down to just a couple of inches above the sill.

He lost his bearings momentarily in the snow-dampened night and had to cling to the wall of the house until he could see the wan glow of the porch light reflected off skittering snowflakes ahead. Then he began to slog toward the front of the house, hoping that a vantage point by the far window would put him at least out of Margot’s line of sight, if not Will’s as well.

He just had to see. _Just had to see_. And not pass out.

The chattering of his teeth sounded like shotgun blasts within the silence. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of his mad dash across Will’s property with Jack Crawford on his heels. How long had it been? Days? Weeks? A year?

Frederick stopped right in his tracks when he realized he no longer thought about his little red roadster, his cashmere pullovers. The socks that were currently freezing to his feet were probably a polyester blend. Maybe the fusty old sociologists were right: fear does help one sort out one’s priorities. 

What is the indulgence of luxury but the pastime of the lonely? In the same measure that the thought stung, it also brought a little bit of pleasure when Frederick thought about Hannibal Lecter, alone and high atop his mountain of corpses. Thinking that Will had joined him only to have the proverbial rug pulled out from under him at some indeterminate point in the future.

_That’s right_ , Frederick thought. _Will doesn’t care about you_.

And then: _Does he care about me?_

At that point—fortuitously as Frederick might later reflect—he lost his balance on feet numb as stones and toppled face-first into the snow. At first, Frederick thought he had fainted again and was dreaming, but realized that he, Frederick Chilton the man, was simply crawling through the drifts, trying to keep his head above them. He managed to get his feet under him again, and then the warm glow from the window was in view.

The light in the living room cast a perfect golden rectangle over the snow. Frederick crouched again and inched into its perimeter.

He could see Will, in profile. And...just a couple more inches...there she was.

His jaw dropped so fast that his teeth nearly froze. She was wearing a different outfit—a claret velvet equestrian jacket with a high-collared blouse and tall boots—all pieces of impeccable quality, but there could be no mistake that this was the same woman who had come to the house.

Frederick tried a lot of emotions out and discarded them one by one. He endeavored to feel terrified that Margot Verger might have caught on to Will’s secret and was now trying to blackmail him in exchange for her silence. (Though someone with what was obviously a tailored designer wardrobe he could hardly imagine needed to blackmail an impoverished FBI consultant.) Failing that, Frederick tried to make his heart sink at the fact that he could in all likelihood add “psychic premonitions” to his laundry list of delusions.

But all he could do was watch Margot—the sweep of her aristocratic nose, the shine of her hair—and utterly forget his frozen limbs. The latent mythologist burst to the surface again. Frederick felt like Psyche viewing Cupid by lamplight. Everything was beautiful and forbidden and discomfort had fled in those few captured moments before the drop of hot lamp oil fell.

She turned toward the window.

Frederick dropped, then came up sputtering, spitting snow. For a few seconds he thought about going back around the side of the house and slipping back in the window, already afraid that he had done too much damage, but he was entranced. He raised his head once again, squinting into the glow. Will turned to look at the window, and his eyes widened.

When Margot’s gaze followed his, Frederick had to slam his face into the snow again.

“Did you see something?” Margot asked.

Will grimaced his most insincere smile. “Light on the snow. Playing tricks.”

Margot took a sip of her whiskey. “I know about tricks.”

Frederick raised his head once more. He could feel the snow melting and re-freezing in his beard. Will was looking straight at him, tilting his head and widening his eyes. The look said, _What the hell are you doing?_

“Down,” Will hissed.

Frederick groaned and flopped into the snow once more. When he looked up again, crystalline flakes in his eyelashes, all of Will’s dogs were laying on their bellies around his feet. 

“Down!” Will said again.

Frederick hit the snow. The dogs rested their heads on their paws.

“They’re very well trained, Mr. Graham,” Margot said.

“ _Some_ of them are.”

Frederick raised his head one more time.

“Go!” Will barked. “Into the kitchen. Go!”

Both Margot and Frederick flinched. The dogs, ever obedient, got up and began to straggle into the back of the house. As loath as he was to leave the lovely visage of Margot Verger behind, Frederick figured that was his cue. He tottered back to the kitchen, hauled up the window, and poured himself through it, landing hard on his shoulder on the linoleum.

He was still there, shivering in a ball when he heard the front door close and the noise of a car engine starting.

Will’s footsteps headed back to the kitchen were heavy, ominous. “Are you _insane?_ ”

“Yes,” Frederick said with absolute conviction.

That seemed to take Will aback. “Listen,” he said after a pause, “I don’t want to do any more explaining than I have to. Margot Verger is a wild card. What in hell were you thinking, Frederick?”

“I recognized her voice,” he said. “I’ve seen her before.”

“Where? At Hannibal’s?”

_Right here at your house_ , he thought. “No,” said Frederick. “I can’t remember.”

“That’s a hell of a lot of danger to put yourself in for the sake of someone you half-remember,” Will said.

“Yes, but did you _see_ her?”

Will gave him a blank stare for a couple of seconds, then chuckled behind his hand. “Frederick. Have you got a crush?”

He harrumphed. “I have a very refined aesthetic.”

Will dropped his hand and laughed out loud.

***

There was, of course, no way that Frederick was going to tell Will about the circumstances under which he’d first seen Margot Verger. To his relief, Will was more interested in divulging what she had said. Margot was indeed seeing Hannibal, apparently as part of a strategy to shrug off the yoke of her abusive and most likely psychotic brother, Mason. She was astute enough to sense, though, that something about Lecter wasn’t quite on the up-and-up. At least that was the way Frederick chose to read it.

“Does she know about me?” Frederick asked.

“I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know you’re here,” said Will, “and I don’t think she cares who you are. Her focus is Hannibal.”

“That makes three of us,” Frederick said. He supposed he didn’t have any right to be a little hurt by what Will had said about Margot not caring who he was, but the sting was there anyway. “I’m going to take a hot shower and go to bed.” He got up, realizing his clothes were sopping wet and leaving a puddle on the floor. “Oh, well, I’ll clean this up first.”

“Thanks, Frederick.”

Frederick was nearly struck dumb. “You’re welcome?”

Will stood up as well, the dogs gathering at his heels. “Goodnight, Frederick.”

“Wait. Will, wait.” Frederick raised a dripping arm. “I’ll take the couch tonight.”

Will gave a soft smile and a brief nod and headed back into the darkness of the hallway.

***

Later, Frederick would call that offer either prescient or lucky, depending on how insane he would admit to being at the time.

Almost as soon as he settled down onto the surprisingly comfortable living room sofa he was slipping out of it again. The night, which should have been quiet, was positively _alive_ with sound. He could hear the huffing breath of each dog, even though they were all in the other room. Well, _nearly_ all of them. Buster’s typically low-level snuffling sounded like an industrial fan.

Frederick went to the window. It had stopped snowing and the sky had cleared. Even the moonlight on the snow seemed to have a noise of its own: robust, crystalline, like a visible trumpet fanfare. For no reason at all, it made Frederick’s mouth water.

He opened the door to a swirl of snow-coated air. Behind him, Buster raised his head.

“Fine,” he said, raising an eyebrow. “Come on.”

The little dog leapt from the couch and trotted behind Frederick, who closed the door behind them. Even through the bitter cold, the night had a smell. He recognized it from one of his prior dreams: dead vegetation and live, skittering little hearts.

And he _must_ be dreaming, yes? Because he was taking off his clothes. Buster, sitting on his haunches beside him, looked up for a cue. Dream-Frederick didn’t stop stripping until all of his clothes lay in a pile on the front porch. The cold was an afterthought.

Then the entire world shivered and collapsed. Frederick hit the boards of the porch hard but instead of laying there he surged off the steps face-first into the snow. This time, he barely felt it, only on the pads of his paws.

_Paws?_

Oh, of course. If this was a dream, he was almost certainly the big black dog again. Free, empowered, incognito. Just for the hell of it, he wheeled and slunk around the side of the house to see if Margot was visiting his dream again. But no, the house was dark. He could see the blankets he left, the couch that had already breathed out the impression of his body. 

Buster barked once, low. 

Dog-Frederick chuffed back, and the little dog was quiet.

_I’m obviously alpha dog_ , thought dream-Frederick, not without a considerable sense of triumph.

A sudden movement in the very corner of his eye made Frederick spin around and crouch low. It seemed to be a moving lump of snow, until it hopped in front of a leafless bush and Frederick could see pink eyes, a twitching nose. 

There was a burst of mouthwatering scent, and it took dog-Frederick only a moment to realize that what he was smelling was fear. He moaned; it came out as a whine.

The rabbit froze in place, except for the trembling of its leaping heart. Frederick could almost hear it pulsing against the snow. 

A branch snapped in the far distance. The rabbit turned, its quivering tail pointed toward Frederick. It may very well have been an icicle falling, but Frederick saw his chance. He was next to the bush in a couple of bounds; it took only a split second more and he had a mouthful of squealing meat. He was biting down before he realized it, bathing himself in silence and blood.

The snow that enveloped him was almost warm as he took his time tearing the steaming rabbit apart. He almost invited Buster to share, but the little dog would be lost in the snowdrifts. Instead, he sat patiently on the porch, shivering a little in the sharp moonlight.

As a token for his loyalty, dog-Frederick took back one of the rabbit’s hind paws, laying it on the boards at Buster’s feet. The smaller dog snatched it up and held it high as Frederick led the way back into the house. 

It seemed as soon as he crossed the threshold he was human again, wondering at the terrible, metallic taste in his mouth. Oh, perhaps it wasn’t _entirely_ terrible. He gave in to absent wondering as to whether he’d forgotten to brush his teeth.

It was then that the drop of bright blood fell, bright and accusatory, from his lips to the rug below. Frederick swiped his bare arm across his mouth. The rabbit’s blood smeared his skin. 

Shocked back into consciousness, or what felt like it, Frederick found himself standing stark naked in Will Graham’s living room, the door open wide, his clothes piled on the porch. Worst of all was the swath of red on his forearm. Buster, sitting at his freezing feet, was gnawing on a stringy rabbit leg. 

Frederick’s mouth dropped open, but he shut it just as quickly, smelling his own blood-scented breath. It was no nightmare this time—he had stripped down on Will’s porch and walked naked out into the snow...and killed something.

He thought for a moment that it could have been something already dead, but the thought was even more loathsome.

_Clinical lycanthropy_. The thought was inescapable. Just like Randall Tier, Hannibal Lecter had somehow managed to make Frederick into a literal animal.

He yanked the rabbit’s foot out of Buster’s jaws and tossed it out the door. The little dog looked positively betrayed. Leaving his clothes on the porch, Frederick made a dash for the shower. It was only after he had been standing under the spray for a good while that he realized any raw meat he had might have eaten was sitting in his stomach without a single complaint.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am soooooo sorry I went off the grid there for a bit. I promise I'm bound and determined to finish this fic!

Frederick wanted to take a walk. Or, rather, he felt like he _had_ to. He couldn’t bear the thought of Will wandering his property with the dogs and seeing the evidence of the night’s slaughter—as if the pattern of the blood alone could incriminate him. 

“I’m going to get some air,” he announced after breakfast, pulling on the coat that Will had bought for him. 

Will raised his eyebrows. “Care if you have company?”

Frederick’s eyes widened. He began to stammer before he could stop himself. “Uh, I’d...I’d rather...I need some time to think.”

Will smiled. “I didn’t mean me. I’m hardly dressed for it.” He indicated his bare feet. “I wondered if you wouldn’t mind taking the dogs. I promise they don’t talk much.”

Frederick exhaled his relief. “Oh. Of course. Sure.”

Taking a sip of his coffee, Will said, “You okay?”

“Didn’t sleep well. Bad dreams.”

“Huh,” Will said, smiling. “I know that feeling.”

As soon as Frederick reached the door the dogs began dancing around his feet, sending little chuffs and yips into the air like a round of applause. In a way, Frederick could see why Will liked living with these creatures. Nearly everything one did drew instant canine accolades. As grudging as it was, he admitted that Buster’s adulation certainly served as a necessary ego boost.

He just wasn’t sure it was enough.

Walking through the crisp snow, squinting into the midmorning light, Frederick remembered standing underneath the spray of a shower so hot he could barely stand it, his skin pink as the bloody water that swirled down the drain. He had gotten on hands and knees and scrubbed the tile with acrid bleach after he had finished, his eyes watering both from the stench and from his helpless frustration. 

Will had seemingly slept through all of it, at least that was what Frederick had hoped as he’d wandered back out to the living room, barefoot and frigid. The icebound air on the porch had been bracing, enough to slap him out of any residual slumber. As he had collected his clothes once again, his hair had frozen in spikes and swirls. (Without his weekly trip to his swank barber, his hair had begun to go long, starting to swerve into curls that Frederick had tried very hard to tame in his former life.)

That life was as thoroughly scrapped and ragged as the remains of the rabbit, which Frederick could see were marked by a peculiar and unsettling savagery as he crested the hill. Blood, still preserved and bright in the cold, was strewn in expressionistic spatters across a mound of disturbed snow. A stiff line of crystallized entrails stretched across the mound to a hole on the far side. Frederick looked inside it and regretted it immediately: there he saw the rabbit’s head, eyes glazed and tongue protruding.

“Eugh.”

Still, he tried to muster nausea but found he could not. Maybe living closer to the land, where such a cycle of life was unavoidable, had dulled his fine senses a bit. The thought was not entirely unpleasant. Also welcome was the near-certainty that he had not affected this carnage. There was no way a man could rip apart a rabbit like that with his bare hands. He had probably been following the other, wild dog—or an idea of it—in his sleep and had come upon its latest meal. If he believed himself to be a dog at the time, owing to his dream, he very well could have picked the corpse up, getting blood all over himself. 

That he’d had blood in his mouth he conveniently ignored in his well-earned relief.

Of one thing he was one hundred percent certain, though: the sleepwalking was far too dangerous to continue. Were he back at the office, he could simply have prescribed himself klonopin or trazodone and been done with the whole mess. Of course, if he were back at the office, chances were good none of this would be happening. 

As for the danger, the very least of it was ending up with frostbite on his extremities. If he was gallivanting about naked at this point, he could lose other very important parts...not that he’d had a chance to use them in a while. The thought made Frederick ache a little with self-pity. How often had he told himself that he was far too busy for a love life when, in fact, the reason for his abstinence was simply that the field of candidates was empty?

And then Margot Verger...oh, Margot. She had rekindled something inside him. Without knowing whether it was possible or plausible or even advisable, he _had_ to see her again. 

Frederick’s reverie was interrupted by the bump of a canine nose directly in his crotch. Looking down, he saw not only an eager mutt but the fact that he would have to stay out in the cold just a little longer in order to avoid embarrassing himself. 

***

Later in the night, if he had the wherewithal to think about it, Frederick would have regretted the glass of cheap whiskey he shared with Will. It dulled his senses, which were already fooling him enough as it was. 

But the pungent alcohol in its cheap mug reminded him of the way Margot’s tongue touched the rim of the cup just before her lips did. Every time she took a sip it was the same: flick of a tongue, then lips. Frederick placed the mug under his nose and inhaled, imagining what perfume she might wear. Nothing ostentatious or commercial. Clive Christian, perhaps. Or Annick Goutal. The scent would fall around him in waves just before the curtain of her hair slipped over his cheeks…

“Frederick?”

Frederick nearly dropped his whiskey. “Huh?”

Will laughed. “You looked lost in space there for a second.”

Frederick sighed. “Not just a second.”

“Those dreams are really getting to you, huh?”

“I’d say you have no idea, but I doubt that’s the case.”

“Do you think you’re sick?” Will asked. “I mean, physically.”

“Like you were?”

Will nodded.

“No. I don’t think so,” Frederick said. “In fact, I’d venture to say if it weren’t for the dreams that I’ve never felt better. Uh, _physically_.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “And mentally?”

Another sigh, this one rippling the surface of the whiskey in the cup. “To be honest, I feel like I’m outside my body half the time. When for the first time in as long as I can remember, _inside_ my body is where I want to be.”

Frederick looked down at his lap, but when he raised his head Will was smiling. “I think you’re more in your mind than you believe,” he said.

“Reflecting on my inner nature?” Frederick rolled his eyes. 

Will shrugged. “Having your inner nature reflected _to_ you.”

“Even if I knew what you were getting at, I’d still say that sounds a lot like a failure of self-control,” Frederick said.

“You’ve always been very invested in control,” said Will. “Maybe obsessively so. It’s only natural that something like this would happen if that was taken away from you.”

“I see,” said Frederick. “The old Jack London effect—strip away all the trappings of comfort and reveal the true measure of the man.”

“The great literary struggle,” said Will. “So, how do you measure up?”

“Ironically,” said Frederick, knocking back the last swig of the whiskey with a grimace, “I feel powerless inside my body, and powerful inside my mind. As a diagnostician, unfortunately, I would say that is as close to dissociation as one gets without ‘losing time.’”

“And you don’t lose time.”

“No. I just...I experience it differently. Uh, sometimes. When I dream.”

Will’s smile widened. “Don’t we all?”

There came a sharp snap from outside in the snow somewhere. The dogs raised their heads. Buster, who was warming Frederick’s sock-clad feet, gave a low growl.

“It’s okay,” said Will.

“It might not be,” Frederick said.

Another snap, a thick branch breaking. Buster yipped and sprang up, body tense and tail straight out.

“Stay here,” Will said, getting out of his chair.

“Will, don’t—”

When Will opened the door, Buster charged the screen door, knocking it open with a firm head-butt and charging out into the night. The only thing visible in the snow for the few feet that the porch light covered was his quivering tail.

“Buster!” Frederick shouted.

A brief silence, then the little dog could be heard barking faintly.

“He must be way the hell out there,” Will said. He pulled on his coat. “Stay here.”

Frederick hovered, his butt half out of the chair, until he heard a sharp yelp from outside. Then he heaved up to his feet and ran to the coat rack. He yanked on his coat and was pulling on his boots with shaking fingers when Will barreled through the shrieking screen door with Buster in his arms.

Time almost seemed to stop as Frederick watched a bright drop of blood slid from the dog’s lacerated haunch and splashed to the floor. Frederick touched his mouth on instinct, though the rabbit’s blood was long gone.

Will knelt and put Buster on the rug. The dog whined. Will shooed away the other dogs and Frederick crouched beside him. The white fur was interrupted by a slash of black that wept blood in a lazy line. At least the flow was sluggish.

“It doesn’t look deep,” Will said.

“I _told_ you!” Frederick said. “I knew there was another dog out there.”

“I don’t think a dog did this,” Will said. “This looks like a knife. Or a claw.”

“A _claw_?”

Will gathered Buster into his arms again. “Let’s get him into the kitchen where we can see better.”

The dogs followed at Frederick’s heels as he trailed Will into the adjoining room. 

Neither of them saw the shape in the window when they flicked on the light. But in a bare moment the kitchen was engulfed in a hailstorm of shattering glass. Will stumbled back and fell, clutching Buster. 

Frederick was conscious long enough to see the thing that had come through the kitchen window. It was right out of a horror story—long, white bones flexing without tendons; a ribcage that seemed no less alive for its lack of breath-fueled heaving; an enormous sightless head that was all maw, wide open and ready to snap on the first available tender bit.

Then he fell into a faint again, with pronounced disappointment this time. Oh, well. At least he wouldn’t feel it while he was being disemboweled. But out of his faint the dream-dog sprang up again, growling and shrieking along with the other dogs.

He smelled the man underneath the nightmare contraption before he saw him, because he was dressed in black, his face painted over. Then—only then—could Frederick see the exposed parts: a flash of white below the chin, a gap in the high neck of the man’s shirt, showing pale flesh over a pulse that leapt and skittered like the doomed rabbit from the night before.

Buster went tumbling out of Will’s arms as the beast bounded in, digging its claws into the wood. Will staggered back, a set of crushing jaws shutting over the thin air where his head had been only moments prior.

Frederick could have sworn Will was looking right at him in the split second before he actually shouted his name. He turned his head away, toward the monstrosity on the dining table. 

_I hope I’m dying with a little dignity_ , he thought.

Dream-dog-Frederick got down on his haunches and, before he could stop himself, leapt toward that sliver of uncovered skin on the man-beast’s neck. He fully expected to bounce off the exoskeleton and be thrown yelping to the floor, helpless to watch as Will was rent limb from limb. But at the last second the creature reared up—the man coming to a crouch in order to pounce—and Frederick closed his own snapping teeth over the man’s throat.

The sudden torrent of blood was unexpected; Frederick let go, hacking and choking, throwing a fine, pink mist up into the air from his drenched snout. His paws scrabbled on the now-slippery table and he thumped off of it and onto a pile of screaming canines. He hoped, absently, that he hadn’t hit Buster and made the poor dog’s night worse. 

The bone-creature looked to be tearing at its own injured throat, but it was just the man trying to hold his claw-bound hands to the wound. It did little good. He vomited black blood over the lip of the table, then collapsed, the enormous bone jaws pulling the limp head over the edge.

Everything smelled and tasted of blood. Now, even dog-Frederick could summon the nausea he had failed to bring up before. He got up on his haunches and retched, spattering his dinner over his hands.

_Hands_?

Frederick sat back on his knees and raised those bloody, stinking hands before his eyes in utter disbelief. To his left there came a sharp hiss—an intake of breath. He turned to see Will clutching at his ragged plaid shirt, eyes wide with terror. But Will was not looking at the fallen monster drooling flumes of blood from his dining room table. He was looking at Frederick.

He tried to say Will’s name, but what came out was a croak and a stream of bloody mucus. Will flattened himself against the wall behind him. “Get away,” he said.

Frederick’s vision swam and he toppled over onto the carpet before everything went black.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I laughed throughout this entire chapter. Also, Frederick is my baby and I love him SO much.

There was something in his eyes—something sticky and black that had begun to flake. Blinking felt like closing his eyelids over an expanse of sand.

It was the smell that hit him next, a raw, charnel-house reek. 

_I’m dreaming_.

The air was very still and very cool. 

Through the miasmic veil over his vision, he saw his own hands. They, too, were flaking. Frederick tried to wiggle his fingers, but they wouldn’t obey. He flexed other muscles, feeling as if he were inside a second skin, emerging to cold and pain and light. 

In the few moments before he realized he was naked, he saw that his hands were bound with bright orange cord, the digits swelling and going numb. Frederick made a noise that might have been an attempt at speech.

“Don’t move,” came a voice from above him.

“Okay.” The word sounded like cement and tasted like it, too. “Okay.”

“Frederick, can you see me?”

“Will? I can’t see much of anything. There’s something...on me.”

“It’s blood, Frederick. Turn your head and look at me.”

Wincing as the crisp hairs on the back of his neck snapped free from his skin, Frederick dragged his cheek along the wood floor and strained to see the man sitting on the chair in front of him. He looked instead into the black bore of a pistol, and couldn’t help flinching back, making the electrical cord around his wrists tighten further.

“If you do it again, I’ll put a bullet between your eyes,”

“Do _what_?” Frederick blinked madly to clear his vision. Chunks of dried blood dangled from his lashes.

Will chambered a round.

“Jesus Christ!” Frederick shrieked. “Okay, okay! Whatever it is, I won’t do it.” He tried and failed to raise his blood-engorged fingers in helpless supplication. 

“Do you remember what happened?” Will asked.

“I had this dream...this—but it wasn’t a dream.”

Will shook his head, at the same time lowering the pistol just a little.

Frederick tried to breathe without gasping. There was a knot of terror pulled tight in his gut, and entwined with it were strands of something else. Disgust? Satisfaction? He squirmed on the hard floor, suddenly self-conscious. “That was Randall Tier, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Will said.

“He’s dead.”

“Yes.”

“In my dream, I—oh, god.” Tears began to prickle at the corners of Frederick’s eyes. To his horror and humiliation, a fat one broke free and ran over the bridge of his nose, cutting a trail through the blood on his face. “Did I...did I kill him?”

Will hesitated, but only for a split second. “Yes.”

A raw sob coughed out of Frederick’s chest. “Oh, Jesus. Oh, no.” The tears flowed freely now. If he had been able to see Will’s face, he would have seen it contorting in sympathy, but only the dark, dancing punctuation mark of the pistol’s end swam up through his watery vision. “Do you think I killed those agents? At my house? I must have. Oh, god, I must have.”

“Frederick,” Will said, nudging Frederick’s forearm with the toe of his boot. His tone was gentler. “Stay with me.”

“Did I kill them, Will? Please.”

“I don’t think you did, Frederick. I really don’t.”

He took a great, shaky breath, licking his dry lips and bringing up the gunmetal taste of blood. Frederick remembered how that great gush had tasted, flooding his palate. It tasted the way he imagined Hannibal felt when he killed. When he carved up and served his victims to his high-society guests. Frederick tried again for nausea and failed, even though he was encased in the slowly drying caul of Randall Tier’s blood. “How did I do it? Tier, I mean. Do you remember?” He asked the question even though he was afraid of the answer.

Will, as always, responded without prevarication. “You used your teeth.”

Frederick could have sworn that the pistol inched closer to his face. “Oh, dear Christ. Will, you have to turn me in. I’m going crazy. I’ve _gone_ crazy. I’m a danger to people. I’d rather be sedated in my own hospital than keep doing this.”

“I’m glad you did it,” Will said.

Frederick felt the air knocked out of his lungs. “ _What_?”

“It was Hannibal. He sent Tier to kill me.” 

“Why the...What would he…?”

“While I was in the hospital,” Will said, “still under your care, if you can call it that.”

For once, Frederick was too shattered to even feel affront. “What? What did you do?”

“I sent someone to kill Hannibal. Your orderly. Brown. As you can probably guess, he failed.”

“You would...actually turn yourself into a killer? For Hannibal’s sake?”

Will swiped the back of his wrist across his sweating brow. Frederick watched the trajectory of the gun as he did so. “I wasn’t thinking clearly in those days. My only comfort was resentment. The need for vengeance.”

“And you’ve gotten _over_ that? Pardon me if I don’t believe you.”

“No, not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. I only intend to play the game by Hannibal’s rules, now that I see what they are. Now that I can beat him. Or, at least, that _was_ my plan until you came along and turned everything on its head.”

“By killing Tier? I don’t understand.”

At this, Will’s lips curled into a small, inexplicable smile. “What do _you_ remember about tonight? I need you to tell me everything.”

Taking a deep breath, Frederick replayed the few, scattered shards of memory he could dig from his blasted brain. The demon-beast crashing through the window. Losing consciousness. Surging upward as the dream-dog. The snap of tendons within his jaws. “I thought—I thought I had passed out. Trust me, it’s a very Frederick Chilton thing to do.” No point avoiding self-deprecation when one was just about as low as one could get. “But I saw myself...not as myself but as a, well, a _dog_. The dog I keep dreaming about. Now do you see why I need to turn myself in? I’m hallucinating, dissociating. I lost time in this idiotic, fear-fueled delusion and _killed_ someone, Will.”

“I agree with the last part of that.”

“What part?”

“The fact that you killed someone. But if you hadn’t, I would have tried for myself.”

“So what do you not believe?”

“I don’t believe it was a delusion, Frederick. You say you saw yourself turn into a dog.” Will leaned closer, causing Frederick to shrink back as the gun also moved closer. “That’s what I saw, too.”

“You what?”

“I stood there,” he gestured toward the far wall with the pistol, “and I watched you turn into a dog. Or something like that.”

“No,” said Frederick. He shut his eyes. “The last thing I need is you validating my delusions. I’m sick, Will. Sicker than I ever thought.”

“If you’re delusional, then so am I,” Will said. “Because I know what I saw. The only reason I have this gun on you is for my protection.”

Frederick heaved a phlegm-laden laugh before he could stop himself. “Just in case I turn into a dog and rip _your_ throat out?”

Will’s stolidity spoke of its own accord. 

“You—you’re _serious_ ,” Frederick said, beginning to babble. “I knew it. I knew I shouldn’t have let you out of the hospital. You’re sick; you’ve made me sick. I think—I think you and Hannibal are in it together. That’s what I think. Conspiring to make me go crazy. To make me into your puppet, your creature. I’m an idiot! I’m a fool!”

“You’re not a fool, Frederick. You’re something neither myself nor Hannibal ever could anticipate.”

“What am I?” Frederick was on the verge of tears once again. “Tell me, Will. Because I don’t even know anymore.”

Will bit his lip. Frederick could have sworn there was something a little impish behind the gesture. But then Will’s expression grew as grave as that of any doctor delivering news of a terminal illness. “I think...you’re a werewolf.”

***

It was possibly the fact that Frederick _hadn’t_ laughed outright that made Will agree to untie him. He winced at the tingle of returning blood flow to his fingers when the taut cord was loosened. Only when Frederick was freed did Will seem the least bit abashed that he was looking at a naked man splattered with blood.

“You may want to shower,” Will said.

Frederick unfolded his cramped legs and stood, placing his hands over his groin. “Are you going to hold a gun on me while I do it?”

After a pause, Will shook his head. “I’m going to figure out what to do with this.” He gestured to the table. 

Given the conversation that had just occurred, Frederick felt oddly detached from the sight that greeted him. Tier’s exoskeleton, which had been menacing when animated, was a sad heap of bones, its artificial tendons slack. Aside from the blood, which stretched in a great, tacky pool over the wood, Tier’s motionless body was serene. Frederick was perturbed that their attacker lay face-down and he didn’t see any evidence of his purported attack.

_You used your teeth_.

“I want to see it.”

“See what?” Will asked.

“The wound. The, uh, bite. I want to see it.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Leaving only one hand cupping his crotch and freeing the other to gesture toward the corpse so he could at least retain a modicum of civilized decorum, Frederick raised his chin and said, “If you’re worried I might faint, I promise you I won’t.”

“I can’t be sure of that,” Will said. “Remember what happens when you pass out.”

“It can’t possibly happen every time.”

“I’d rather not take that chance right now. I don’t want to have to shoot you.”

“I don’t want you to shoot me, either!”

“Then go take a shower. Get dressed. I’m going to have a look. If nothing else, I can tell you how the wound appears, at least from a non-medical standpoint.”

“That’s not good enough.” Frederick was almost pouting, then a flashbulb of recognition popped in his head. “Wait! I can prove to you I don’t attack people every time I, well, pass out. Remember how I told you that I knew Margot Verger from somewhere? It was here. I knew her from right here. She came to the house one day when you were out on a case. I thought it was a dream, but she _had_ to have been here. She was looking down at me, looking at me like I was one of the dogs. She didn’t see a man there at all! She said—” Frederick paused.

“She spoke to you?”

“Not exactly. It was, um, like you’d talk to a dog.”

“What did she say?”

If at any moment in his life Frederick could be glad of a literal facefull of blood covering his flushed cheeks, this was it. He returned his other hand to cover his groin and looked down at the blood-soaked boards of the floor. “She said, ‘You’re a big boy, aren’t you?’” Frederick cringed and clenched his teeth.

Will did not respond.

Frederick expected when he looked up to see Will staring at him, but when he dared open his eyes the other man was also looking at the floor, mashing his knuckle against his mouth, his shoulders shaking in silent laughter.

“Oh, go ahead,” Frederick said, rolling his eyes.

Will threw his head back and laughed. The dogs, who had begun to creep in from the adjoining room, flinched and whined. “I’m sorry,” Will said, struggling to gain control once again. “I’m really sorry. It’s just—”

“No,” Frederick said. “This is what my life has become. Absurdity punctuated by terror. Or maybe the other way around.”

Will held a finger up, signaling silence. “Wait. Terror. When do you say you pass out and dream about becoming the wolf?”

“I’m not a wolf.”

“You’d rather be a dog?”

“I’d rather not be either!”

“Just answer the question,” Will said.

“Well, when I feel threatened, which I most certainly did when our eviscerated friend here came through the window.”

“And when Margot came to the house for the first time.”

“Yes,” Frederick said. “You can imagine I wasn’t keen on being discovered.”

“But not the second time she came,” Will said.

Frederick shuffled his bare feet. “I suppose that time I was more...intrigued.”

“And you become the wolf when you sleep?”

“Yes, I told you that.”

“Are you seeing what I’m getting at here?”

Frederick gave a helpless shrug. 

“It’s entirely unconscious. You’re scared or in danger, or your subconscious has the reins, you turn. You’re like the Incredible Hulk.”

“The what?”

Will smiled. “Don’t worry about it. Come on, be a psychiatrist. It means the wolf is essentially your id.”

“Don’t get Freudian with me.”

“I’m standing in my kitchen talking about dreams with a naked, blood-covered man. It doesn’t get much more Freudian than that,” Will said.

“Gah,” said Frederick. “Fine. So when my ego is in control, I’m a man. When I’m running on instinct, I’m a… _wolf_.”

“Exactly,” said Will. “And that’s dangerous. Now you understand the reason for the gun. But, listen, the Hulk learned to control his rage.”

“I still don’t understand who you’re talking about.”

“You never read comics as a kid?”

“I went to boarding school,” Frederick said, as if it explained anything.

“What I’m saying, essentially, Frederick, is that I think you can teach yourself to control this. Turn wolf whenever you want, by your own volition. Not just on instinct.”

“I’ve never felt less in-control in my life.” Frederick’s tone was close to a whine again.

Will took a swift step forward, closing the distance between them. Frederick stumbled back, but Will kept coming.

“Now, who was that arrogant, self-assured prick who ran the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane? Do you remember him? Because I sure do.”

“You thought I was a prick?”

“Never mind. The point is, I know you a lot better now, Frederick. Back then, you seemed like a coward who lorded over the pathetic creatures in his charge, but lesser men would have crumbled long ago and gone running back to Jack Crawford, begging to be put in chains. You’re stronger than you think.”

Frederick’s breath caught in his throat; his eyes burned. _No. I would give my right leg not to cry at this moment._ He sniffled hard and refocused his attention on Will, giving a stiff nod. “Thank you.”

“Which is good, because I have a plan.” Will’s grin was almost feral. “A design, if you will.”


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just FYI: knives and razors and slicey-slicey

When Frederick emerged from what might have been the longest shower of his lifetime (painstakingly picking dried bits of biomatter out of one’s ear canals and from under one’s ill-kept nails should not be a trial through which any civilized man should go), Will was still working in the dining room.

The burst window was sealed against the cold and the blowing snow with a piece of cardboard, but all the hairs on Frederick’s body prickled up at the residual chill. The heap of bones, gears, and springs that Tier had worn Will had discarded in a corner, its menace deflated. Frederick could see the man ( _the man he’d killed_ ) wasn’t particularly large or imposing. Still, Tier’s dead eyes were open wide and going cloudy. His chin rested against the tabletop, neck bent at a hideous angle because of all the tissue missing from his neck. 

“We may have to take the floor up,” Will said, giving a forlorn look at the blood-imbued boards. “I can say I’m remodeling.”

“Whatever you need,” Frederick heard himself say. He bent to retrieve the blood-spattered shirt out of which he, in wolf form, had apparently jumped, and draped it over Tier’s face.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Will told him. “I’m going to cut it off.”

“His _head_?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“To give to Hannibal.”

“A riposte?” Frederick asked.

“A gesture of good faith. In order for my plan to work, I still need to appear to be on his side.”

“I thought you had changed your mind on that idiotic notion. Because of me.”

“You’re a wild card right now, Frederick,” Will said. “You need some time. Time to learn to control your gift.”

“Whatever this is, Will, I assure you it is _not_ a gift.”

Will smiled. “If it lets you take Hannibal down and clear your name, how is that not a gift?”

Frederick opened his mouth to speak but, regrettably, Will’s words made too much sense to allow for a snappy comeback. “So, are you ever going to let me in on this plan of yours?”

“Suffice to say it involves you and Hannibal in a room while you’re...not yourself.”

Frederick’s eyes widened, forcing on him an unpleasant memory of Randall Tier’s dead, bulging eyes. “You’re not going to bring him _here_?”

Will huffed a laugh. “No. That wouldn’t do anything to prove you’re not the Ripper. You’d have to leave the house to avoid being, uh, _put down_. You’d still be on the run.”

“You could say one of your other dogs did it.”

“I’m not risking them.”

“But you’re risking me!”

“As it stands, Frederick, you’re the only one who can set this to rights,” Will said. “Time to man up. Or wolf up, as the case may be.”

“Oh, very funny.”

“Listen, I’m making my own sacrifices. You’ll only have to be close to Lecter once. I need to ingratiate myself. I need to build trust, and that’s going to take a while.”

“And what do you suggest I do in the meantime?”

“For starters, I’d say you should study up on your condition.”

***

The first order of business, though, was to tend to Buster. The scratch Tier had inflicted on him was indeed superficial and the dog had set about cleaning it, smearing burgundy saliva on the white fur surrounding the laceration. Frederick tried to pretend that he didn’t also feel the urge to lick Buster, but he couldn’t hold back a brief whine of sympathy.

Man-Frederick still couldn’t bring himself to watch as a placid Will used a hacksaw to sever Randall Tier’s spine between the second and third cervical vertebrae. He only knew that was the chosen spot because Will narrated the entire procedure. Cutting the head so close below the mandible would effectively disguise cause of death, paring away the ragged strips of flesh left from Frederick’s attack. Tier could have been shot for all Hannibal would know, or so Will hoped. No doubt the sick bastard would ask for his very own narration of the events.

After the head had been severed and placed aside, Will asked Frederick to steady the legs of the dining room table as he sawed each one off in turn, making it easier to fit the entire thing out the back door. The remainder of Tier’s body would go with it—quite the convenient fuel for the pyre on which Will planned to burn the body. Few people blinked an eye at setting fallen deadwood ablaze in the deep country. However, no bonfire would burn hot enough to reduce the bones to ash, so Will would have to rake them out of the embers and place them in the wood-burning potbelly furnace downstairs. 

This he told Frederick in a conversational tone. Frederick, for his part, was not sure that he could ever be as much of a danger to Will as Will could be to him. Not a good idea to cross someone who constantly thinks about how to kill people. Despite any solid claim of self-defense, Frederick knew he would have Randall Tier’s death on his conscience from that night onward. He wondered if Will would have had the same moral compunction. The thought gave him what he feared at first to be the primordial shiver of the flesh that preceded a transformation. Turned out he was just thoroughly creeped out.

The feeling refused to abate as he and Will watched Randall Tier’s body blacken and shrink in on itself atop the makeshift pyre. The initial stench of gasoline gave way to a more earthy and disturbing reek as Tier’s organs sizzled and his remaining blood boiled. Frederick’s eyes stung; he drew the back of his hand across his chin when he felt a warm trickle there. But it wasn’t a tear. His mouth was watering.

Muscles tensing, he was poised to run back through the blank snowscape to the house, which was lit like a ship on a frozen sea. But Tier’s head stood sentry back there, draped in Frederick’s blood-spattered jacket, set out on the porch so the dogs wouldn’t worry at it while he and Will completed their grisly task.

Frederick looked over at Will through the screen of the dancing flames. His eyes were closed, his lips slightly parted, and he looked to be swaying a little on his feet, though that could merely be the effect of the flickering light. The thought reappeared unbidden in Frederick’s mind: maybe Hannibal Lecter had just cause to be afraid of Will Graham. But now didn’t he have equal cause to fear Frederick? Lecter was wily, but he was faced with two opponents, each of which was an unknown quantity to him, and should one fail the other could take up the slack. It was ironclad. Wasn’t it?

Frederick wiped his mouth again and looked up, watching the column of smoke dissipate and the view give way to high, cold stars.

***

Will had been adamant that he deliver his gift to Hannibal that very night. After Will had tipped the bundle containing Tier’s head into a plastic garbage sack, tossed it in the passenger seat of his station wagon, and set off toward Baltimore, Frederick opened Will’s laptop and stared at the glowing screen. Its glare was white, clean, comforting. Not the ruddy and tainted light from the fire out back, which still smoldered in the thick, pre-dawn darkness.

He settled into the wing chair in the sitting room. After a while, Buster limped in, his flank shining with antibiotic ointment, and settled between Frederick’s sock-clad feet with a low groan of contentment.

All of the top search results brought up when Frederick typed in “lycanthropy” had to do with a delusion. He swallowed hard and looked up “werewolf” instead. The clinical condition did not seem to be nearly as diverse as the _literal_ condition. Depending on the lore and the location, there were as many iterations and explanations as anyone could think of. Some lycanthropes were men one minute and wolves the next, indistinguishable from the sharp-toothed, sheep-stealing nightmares that haunted pastoral hills. Others seemed to take on only some characteristics of the animal: fur, fangs, claws. Hideous half-and-half malformations like Lon Chaney’s Wolfman. Though that might have scared the bespoke trousers off Hannibal Lecter, Frederick was glad that what he seemed to be experiencing was a total transformation. Excess body hair, up to the point that he’d been forced to hide away in Will’s cabin, was not part of his aesthetic. He used to visit a discreet salon every two weeks to have his chest waxed. Driven to self-consciousness, he fastened the top button of his henley, his fingers brushing the few curls speckling the flesh over his sternum. 

According to a few traditions, lycanthropes could change at will. Others did so only at night, or under a full moon, or on their birthdays. Some were cursed to remain in wolf form forever. According to his research (if this could be called “research” and not the utter folly it felt like), the cause of true lycanthropy was a curse, or a misdeed. Neither of these sat well with Frederick. If misdeeds could perpetuate a curse, he was well and truly buggered.

Most legends seemed to attribute the change to a bite from another werewolf. It was the closest approximation Frederick could find...provided, of course, that the “dog” he had faced down while trying to evade capture by Jack Crawford had been somewhat more than it seemed. It made the most sense, outside of the fact of the bite. Or, rather, that there hadn’t been one. Frederick remembered the torn sleeve of his coat, the shredded shirt beneath, blood with no discernible source. And, very clearly, the lack of any wounds on his person.

On about the third page of search results, he made a discovery that served as food for thought—and likely the action that followed—were he to have any time later for musing in retrospect. A web page with poorly rendered graphics nonetheless informed him that the werewolf could spontaneously heal, provided that the wound was not made by a silver implement. Only a pure silver knife or a pure silver bullet could truly kill a werewolf, according to the amateurish purple text. Frederick felt a brief surge of triumph, attended quickly by guilt: Randall Tier had wanted to change his form, but at the end he hadn’t been able to. He had been murdered by his aspirations. Or, it could be said, his hubris. Perhaps that made him a fitting tool for Hannibal, and a fitting mirror for Hannibal’s own end. The thought managed to embolden Frederick. 

_What if I was bitten, but healed before I woke up?_

His heart rate picking up, Frederick abandoned the laptop and went to inspect his face in the bathroom mirror. Could he remember having cut himself shaving while here at Will’s house? Had the cuts simply disappeared before he had time to notice? He undressed and checked his skin for bruises, but his body was uniformly fish-belly white, unblemished. Checking to see that Will had not returned home, Frederick stood and examined that body. Muscles that had begun to sag with disuse and age (oh, weren’t the forties a bitch?) seemed to have tightened. His small paunch had definitely shrunk. True, the hair on his forearms, his lower legs, and his chest was a bit thicker than it may have been before, but none of it seemed out of place.

_Somebody could look at this, objectively, and think_...I like it. _Even_...I want to touch it. _Someone with long chestnut hair and_...

Oh, no, no. It was the precise worst time to be thinking about Margot Verger. When, really, was a good time, though? She was an unfulfilled dream, like most missed liaisons in Frederick’s uninspired romantic history. He re-dressed himself and fled the bathroom, sitting down hard in the wing chair.

Useless fugitive celibate coward.

Excuse me: Useless fugitive celibate _werewolf_ coward.

Frederick barked an ugly laugh, drawing a frightened yip from Buster. While it was an activity that Frederick might have made an afternoon of when he was back in his previous life, wallowing in pity seemed worse than useless at the moment. He ground his teeth together, sprang up from the chair, and snatched Will’s copy of Ovid back off the shelf. 

Frederick fanned out the pages of the book and, before he could lose his nerve, pinched a page between his first and second fingers, the paper’s edge just indenting the sensitive webbing between those fingers. And he pulled.

“Ow!”

The paper cut stung immediately and badly. Frederick dropped the book, clutching his hand and staggering back to the bathroom sink. 

“That was stupid, Frederick,” he told his shame-flushed reflection. “Stupid!”

Blood had already begun to leak from between the digits as he ran his hand under cold water. He raised the hand up to the mirror and gingerly pushed the fingers apart. Bright redness welled in a sizable valley cut into his flesh. Frederick swore, using a term he would not normally have used under even the most dire circumstances. Another rivulet of blood slipped down his palm and he lowered the hand underneath the tap again. When he brought it up, though, there was no more blood.

The slice in his skin was livid instead. Staring indirectly at his own wide eyes in the mirror, Frederick watched the two white halves of the wound stitch themselves together millimeter by millimeter. He could have sworn his jaw dropped far enough to impact the edge of the sink.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

As avoidant as he was of pain in any form, Frederick was far more enslaved to curiosity. He picked up the safety razor on the ledge in front of the mirror and, after a moment’s hesitation, drew it up the side of his face dry.

“Ow!”

The patch of nicked hair follicles began to bleed, but after a couple of good splashes with water, Frederick couldn’t tell the skin had ever been abraded at all. He looked from the hair-and-skin-clotted razor blades to his face in the mirror, then back again, and slowly...slowly...smiled.

***

Will’s exhausted look vanished at once when he saw Frederick in the kitchen holding the knife.

Frederick pre-empted a move for his gun with, “This isn’t for you!” He held the blade a few inches above his left wrist.

“Frederick,” Will said. “We can talk about this. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

“What way?”

“You don’t have to do this alone.”

“I know!”

“Well, then, can you just put the knife down? Please?”

“In a minute,” Frederick said. He hoped his voice didn’t sound as manic to Will’s ears as it did to his own. “I need you to see something.”

“I’ve already seen all the blood I can handle for one night. More than one.”

“This is different.”

“I’ll have to take you to a hospital. You won’t be safe anymore.”

“Will,” Frederick said. “I’ve got this under control. I’ve, uh, had some practice...I’ve—you just have to see.”

“Frederick,” said Will. “Please.”

“Just for once. For _once_. Trust me,” Frederick said. 

And he slashed his wrist.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FLAPJACK.

“Isn’t there a pill for that?” Will smiled over the lip of his coffee cup.

The turn of Frederick’s mouth, by contrast, was sour. “I’m so glad you find it funny.”

This was three mornings after the one in which Frederick had slit his left wrist with a carbon steel cooking knife. Three mornings after Frederick’s thick venous blood, bright by comparison, joined the drying crust of Randall Tier’s blood on the floor of Will Graham’s infrequently-used dining room. Three mornings after Will had charged Frederick and wrestled the knife from his grip, ruining his clothes as thoroughly as Frederick had ruined his only a little earlier.

Three mornings after both men, panting and frightened on the sticky floorboards, watched the deep slash in Frederick’s arm stop bleeding and knit itself closed with questing tendrils of flesh embracing over the wound. Not even a scar was left.

Frederick could have sworn Will’s eyes had been as ready to pop out of his head as any snuffling pug dog’s. (And there he had been, thinking in canine terms again. There was literally no escape.)

On this particular morning, it had also been two nights since Frederick had gone wolf, something unprecedented in his time at Will’s home. The less disturbed his sleep had been, the more disturbed he became.

“I, personally, am concerned that this has shot our little plan full of holes,” Frederick told Will. “What if I can’t…?”

“Get it up anymore?” Will asked, hiding his grin once again behind the coffee cup.

“As much as I dislike the metaphor, yes.”

Will set his mug down. “I don’t think you can just stop being a werewolf.”

Frederick huffed. The problem was, of course, that there were no set parameters on his condition, other than the empirically established fact that he had been bitten. 

“Well, I don’t know,” Will said. “Maybe it...clears up on its own after a while.”

“Can we please stop with the venereal comparisons? I would think you’d be taking this more seriously.”

“I am. As a matter of fact, I have a theory on your condition.”

“Oh?” asked Frederick, thumbing a drop of coffee from his lower lip. “Do tell.”

They were in the kitchen as the dining room floor had been torn up. Thankfully, neither Frederick’s blood nor Tier’s copious contribution had leached through to stain the concrete below. Of course, the little house often smelled of boiling blood as they fed pieces of the boards one by one into the wood-burning stove downstairs. The little furnace was raging nearly twenty-four-seven.

Frederick? Not so much.

Will leaned in over the table. “I think it’s because you’re not afraid anymore.”

“Ha! I’m plenty afraid. Afraid of getting caught, afraid of what I might do if I turn again.”

“Bullshit,” Will said, causing Frederick to startle. “You’re afraid you _won’t_ turn again.”

“See?” Frederick said. “Fear.”

Will shook his head, pausing to take a sip of the cooling coffee. “It’s not enough. You’re not scared of getting hurt. Now that you know you can heal. It’s interfering with your ability to transform because you do so based on strong emotion.”

“It won’t help us if every time I need to go wolf I have to sit down in front of ‘Sense and Sensibility’ first.”

“I never would have pegged you as the type to get misty over Jane Austen.”

Frederick blushed violently. “It was a joke.”

Will cocked an eyebrow. 

“Oh, bite me,” Frederick said. It was an uncharacteristic sentiment, something he never would have said in a million years before finding himself in his current situation. Will’s easy vernacular was obviously rubbing off on him. 

When Will laughed, it bounced off the linoleum, ringing loud in the kitchen. “As long as you don’t do the same to me,” he said.

***

Frederick went to bed early that night with the conscious intention of forcing his brain to make his body obey. He woke from a dreamless sleep ten hours later to the sound of Will getting ready to leave the house.

“Morning, Frederick,” he said, pulling on his snow boots.

“Where are you going?”

“Jack’s got another case for me. I do have to work to put steak on the table.”

“We don’t eat _steak_.”

“No, but you’re consuming my semi-burned burgers like they’re about to be rationed. If anything, that’s a good sign.”

“I tried again last night,” said Frederick.

“No luck.” It was a statement rather than a question.

“Obviously.”

“Try again today,” Will said, zipping his jacket. “Get outside. Out into the wild a little.”

“The last thing I need is to leave my clothes somewhere out in the snow.”

“That’s the attitude,” Will said. “I’ll see you tonight.”

Frederick nodded, his mind already drifting. Maybe getting out, remembering what it was like to smell the snow and the heavy, leaden day, would remind his id—as Will would say—of its former unconstrained romps. 

Yet, as the day dragged on, he found himself reluctant to get up out of the wing chair, to put on his down coat and flail hopelessly about in the snow, waiting for a change he wasn’t even sure would come again. And yes, Will had been right: he was absolutely bereft without the presence of the wolf. Not even for the sake of taking down Hannibal anymore, but for the simple fact that it was his only hint of freedom.

Frederick’s foul mood made an abrupt reversal while he was eating cold chili from a can, staring out the kitchen window. A blot of blackness marred the snowscape; it moved, it resolved. The wolf that had bitten him had come back to the house for the first time since his realization. Almost at once he was ecstatic. After dropping the can of chili on the floor, fork and all, he dashed toward the front door and threw on his coat, eschewing snow boots for Will’s galoshes in his haste.

When he ran back into the kitchen the wolf was still outside the window, doing its familiar paw-hopping dance, its red tongue lolling. 

“You bastard,” Frederick whispered. The back door whispered as well, shoving up a pile of snow with its half-swing outward. He squeezed through, out into the snow. If anything, the wolf’s dance became more insistent. It crouched down then sprang up again, chuffing small, white clouds into the chill air. 

Frederick closed his eyes, balled his fists, and willed the change to occur. When he opened his very human eyes again, the wolf had trotted to the crest of the nearest hill. It ran in a tight circle down the hillside and back up again, taunting. Daring Frederick to follow.

Under the cover of heavy clouds, surrounded by white nothingness, Frederick ran again. 

The gray wolf stayed ahead, but never out of sight, guiding Frederick away until the house was a mere pixel on the clear horizon. When it dashed into a copse of trees, Frederick followed, leaving the house to recede into oblivion altogether. Snow had begun to fall.

Reality flickered like an old silent movie as the wolf darted between bare tree trunks, hiding then pausing, but never staying still. 

Frederick expected to be out of breath, but he took in great lungfuls of frigid air. If anything, the run had left him invigorated and possessed of a singular purpose. He wanted to get close to the wolf again. No sooner had he thought it, though, than the thing disappeared. Kicking up spirals of snow, Frederick turned one way then the other, and back again, searching for a streak of moving gray among the ash-colored tree trunks. 

He nearly fell over when he heard a soft whuff behind him. He whirled and stumbled backward. The wolf only cocked its head in a very dog-like fashion. Unlike during their first encounter in the snowy woods, it wasn’t growling. Still, Frederick’s heart slammed in his chest when the wolf opened its mouth. The panting maw looked a little like a smile.

“Hello?” Frederick said.

The wolf hopped once with its forepaws, a low jump so as not to frighten Frederick. Or so it seemed. It cocked its head in the other direction, ears swiveled forward, condensation leaking from between its jaws and disappearing in swirls on the still air.

Hesitant, Frederick put out his hand. If he was going to be mauled, at least he could heal. The wolf craned its neck, its moist nose nearly at Frederick’s knuckles. He heard it snuffling. Then a warm tongue flicked out across his fingers. The stickiness, slowly going cold, reminded him of Randall Tier’s blood drying on his skin. But at the same time the present sensation comforted him, whereas the memory did not.

“Who are you?” Frederick asked, feeling slightly less the fool for talking to a wolf in light of this little communion.

In response, the wolf backed away, something in its eyes almost reproving. Then it turned and dashed away from the trees, leaving Frederick alone in the cold and confusion. 

It took only a few moments for the experience to take on a sort of surreality, allowing tendrils of fact back into Frederick’s mind. He was stranded out in the snow and had lost sight of the house. “Damn.”

His feet were beginning to go stiff inside the uninsulated rain boots. He scanned the horizon, seeing nothing but snowy hillside. Circling the stand of trees did no good; the slow but insistent snowfall had made it impossible to see his tracks or those of the wolf. Suddenly chilled, and with no other options, he set out in the direction he believed he had come.

Nothing seemed to advance and nothing seemed to recede as Frederick walked. He would look ahead and see the line between land and sky blurred by the steady snow. Spindly trees rose and shivered in his peripheral vision. Were they the same trees as the ones he had left behind? There was no way to tell, and the day was getting darker.

The snow refused to let up. Frederick’s hair had caught the flakes, which melted with his body heat and re-froze in dangerous spikes. Wrapping his arms around himself for warmth did no good at all, and the wind cut through even the down layer of his jacket, insinuating itself through the seams.

_Please, he thought. _If I don’t change, I’ll die out here_. _

And still nothing happened. No vertiginous shiver of transformation. Just the throbbing cold and his thoughts, turning increasingly to desperation. 

Frederick’s feet were numb; he felt like he was stumping along on two wooden pegs. Those frozen stumps betrayed him at last, and he pitched into the snow, inhaling soft powder and doubling up with the resulting cough.

The cough continued, ringing in his ears, until he realized that what he heard was barking. Shoving away all caution, he shouted as loud as he could, “Hey! I’m here!”

The snowbank nearest him shivered and collapsed, and out came Buster, his nub of a tail swatting the powder. 

“Frederick!”

“Will! I’m here!”

Will’s long shadow reached him before the man himself did.

“Oh, thank god,” Frederick breathed.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Frederick reached out his hand, feeling pitiful but too overwhelmed with relief to care. “You told me to get outside a little.” 

Will took his hand and hauled him up. “You idiot. You could have gotten yourself killed. I came home and the house was empty.”

Frederick winced and tottered as he got back on his frozen feet. “The wolf,” he said. “The one that bit me. I think. It was out there. I touched it. It’s like it knew.”

“Knew what?”

“I still couldn’t do it,” Frederick told him, his teeth knocking together. “Couldn’t change.”

“Can you walk?”

Frederick could do nothing but nod. As he rose, he saw through the screen of snow that he had been no more than a thousand feet from the house. He clung to Will’s arm as he was led in silence back to the porch. When inside, Will turned on him and Frederick flinched back, expecting a lecture, a blow.

What he got instead was a hug.

“ _Don’t_ do that again,” Will said, holding Frederick’s shoulders firmly. “Please.”

Frederick was too stunned to say anything. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been physically touched with any sort of affection or concern. Not like that. 

He continued to stand, puzzled, near the doorway while Will went into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee. Outside the house, the silent snow continued to fall.

***

The exhilaration of peril gave way to despair quicker than Frederick would have expected. Even faced with the loss of his own life in the snow, he hadn’t been able to force the wolf to reappear. After a quiet cup of coffee with Will he had gone straight to bed, but only ended up staring at the ceiling, indulging in some patented Frederick Chilton self-loathing that far too easily bubbled to the surface when given an opportunity.

He did not dream, but he knew he had been asleep because he woke to the sound of a thrumming truck engine. Feet that still hurt from having been at the bleeding edge of a case of frostbite hit the cold boards and Frederick was out of bed at once. The engine cut and Frederick heard Will’s voice.

“Thanks for coming.”

“I can’t believe you drive in this mess every day.” The voice was low, gruff, but followed by a short chuckle.

_Jack Crawford_.

There was a part of Frederick that was ecstatic even as the terror slammed down, because Crawford’s form wavered as it emerged from the car and, at last, he knew the wolf was returning. He shut his eyes through the nauseating shift in perspective, then opened them again on a black-and-white world that nonetheless throbbed with color input from his other senses. Frederick could smell his own fear on the clothes that the man had worn. With disdain, he shook himself out of the henley and flannel pants.

He almost left the room before remembering to take each of the man-smelling items of clothing in his strong jaws and drag them one by one into the closet so as not to raise suspicion should Crawford come to the bedroom. 

Long toenails ticking on the hardwood, wolf-Frederick walked to the bathroom and, rearing up, put his forepaws on the edge of the sink. He could just barely see his own feral-looking face staring back at him from its mask of dark fur. Man-Frederick would have smiled, but wolf-Frederick didn’t want to look predatory. He wanted to be as unassuming as possible when he went down the hall to meet the man who wanted to bring him to trial for capital murder.

With only a moment’s hesitation to figure out mechanics, he set his long tail wagging and trotted down the hallway to the living room, where the other dogs were greeting Crawford while he stamped snow from his boots.

“Whuff,” Frederick said, softly, just to catch Will’s attention.

Both men near the door looked up.

“Good boy,” Will said, a smile tugging at the furthest corners of his mouth.

“Good Lord,” Crawford said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a dog that big. Is he new?”

“Yeah,” Will said, looking very _aw-shucks_ with his hands in his pockets and feet shuffling. “Found him out in the snow. He might belong to someone; he’s got very good manners.”

“Hard to put up posters around here,” Crawford said. “You may end up keeping him.”

“We’ll see.”

Frederick tried to stand still while Crawford approached him, one gloved hand outstretched. Even past the kidskin of the glove Frederick could smell the salsa and eggs Crawford had eaten for breakfast as well as a hint of intestinal trouble on the brew. 

_This must be what it feels like to be Hannibal Lecter._ Sniffing out motives people didn’t even know they themselves had. Hiding in a perfectly tailored disguise. The surge of empowerment Frederick felt impelled him toward Crawford, who scratched behind his ears. _Now wasn’t that an unexpectedly pleasant sensation?_

“Hey, buddy,” Crawford said. “What do you call him?” he asked Will.

“His name’s F—” He paused.

Crawford looked up.

“Flapjack,” Will finished.

_Flapjack_?

“Flapjack?” Crawford asked, chuckling.

“Flapjack.”

“I hope that’s nothing personal,” said Crawford.

“Not at all,” Will said. “Sit, Flapjack,” he told Frederick.

Wolf-Frederick did his dead-level best to narrow his canine eyes at Will, but he lowered his hindquarters down to the floor nonetheless.

“Coffee?” Will asked.

Both Frederick and Crawford looked up.

“Sure,” said Crawford. “Sorry, buddy,” he said to Frederick. “Not for dogs.”

“Let’s talk in the kitchen,” Will told him. “I’m doing some, uh, remodeling in the dining room.”

Crawford said not a word as he walked by the torn-up floor in the adjacent room.

Such a luxury, Frederick thought, to be unequivocally believed.

Will poured Hannibal’s gift of gourmet coffee into his limping old Mr. Coffee, which was soon hissing and bubbling. 

Frederick was glad his wolf-self didn’t find the smell as appealing as his man-self would have. 

“It seems a little, well, elementary for the Ripper,” Will said, apropos of nothing.

Crawford seemed to know exactly what he was referencing, though, because his eyes went wide. “‘Elementary?’ He took off a man’s face and put it on the skull of a sabre-toothed cat.”

It took only a second for Frederick to realize they were talking about Randall Tier’s fate. He was glad wolves couldn’t grimace.

“I’m only going on what I’ve seen thus far,” Will said. “He tends to use the whole body. It’s a figure study, part of the work of art.”

“Not the _whole_ body,” Crawford said.

As he poured out two cups of the steaming coffee he arched an eyebrow. “No. Not the part that he eats.”

“Should we expect to find the rest of the body somewhere else?”

“I don’t think so,” said Will. “The Ripper is...disappointed. Tier got himself killed before he could complete his metamorphosis. He doesn’t _deserve_ to be glorified, to be made transcendent. Not completely.”

Crawford shook his head, but it wasn’t in disbelief. He was eating it up. So to speak. “I don’t understand how you do it, Will. But for our sake, I’m glad you do.”

“Don’t be too grateful yet. We haven’t caught the Ripper.”

“Whuff,” Frederick said.

“Sit, Flapjack,” said Crawford. He seemed amused when Frederick remained standing, resolute.

“I think he still only trusts me,” Will said.

_Goddamn right_ , Frederick thought. 

“However,” Crawford said, “I’m not sure how this insight was so important that I had to drive all the way out here.”

Frederick had to lay down, the linoleum cold on his belly. This wasn’t just a routine call by Crawford. Will had _asked_ him out here, but not to tell him his theories on Randall Tier’s demise. It was to see how Frederick would react. Whether he could make him turn by dangling the ultimate threat—exposure—over his head.

It had worked like the proverbial charm, but it didn’t mean Frederick couldn’t feel a bit sore about it. He had half a mind to growl at Will. Or both of them. Instead, he put his chin on his paws and flicked his gaze back and forth between the two men.

“Maybe I was just craving a little human contact,” Will said with a short laugh.

“Have to turn on the TV to hear people talking every once in a while.”

“I don’t have a TV,” Will said. After a short, uncomfortable silence, he continued, gesturing to the dogs and to Frederick. “These guys say more than you’d think.”

Crawford took a swallow of his coffee. “I don’t think I’ve ever told you this, but when I was growing up, we had a Boxer named Ralph…”

Frederick rolled his canine eyes at the banter about Crawford’s childhood dog, but the truth was it hurt a little bit to see that kind of easy connection. He felt comfortable around Will, but had they ever spoken of families? Upbringings? Perhaps it was for the best in the end. Frederick’s childhood had been… _austere_. Not wanting for physical comforts, but sparing in the expression of affection by any party or parties. 

Will and Crawford talked for half an hour, not in the largest part about the Chesapeake Ripper or about Randall Tier. It was a relief for Frederick when Crawford stood to leave.

Frederick made his way to the bedroom on cautious paws and watched the truck until it disappeared over the white horizon. There was no one in the doorway of the bedroom when, at last, he shivered back to his human form.

Will was cleaning up in the kitchen. He turned when Frederick walked in.

“Listen, I’m sorry about ‘Flapjack.’ It was the first thing that came to my mind.”

Frederick said nothing.

“I had to,” Will said. “I knew you could.”

“Thank you,” said Frederick, finally. And, earning a surprised grunt from Will, he hugged the man right back.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fanservice! Not just for kids anymore. Exploiting so many details and tropes it's not even funny.

After he had finally turned upon Jack Crawford’s visit, Frederick—though he kept looking—did not see the gray wolf again for a long while. Perhaps it felt it had done its job. That Frederick had risen to the bait.

The residual part of Frederick Chilton that resented being baited more than just about anything had been scrubbed away, the space it left filling with a gratitude as unmitigated as it was shocking to him. It was humbling, in a way, as well. Everything that Frederick earned up until the point of his Hannibal-orchestrated fall from grace he had fought for, bled for (albeit mostly metaphorically). It took the one thing that he had been given without asking, without _taking_ , to bring him to a state of uncluttered realization that had previously been hidden from his view by too much aimless _striving_.

With this cleanness also came a certain purity of purpose that involved much less an entrapment of Hannibal Lecter and much more a freeing of himself. That, in turn, ignited an impatience that made him reluctant to admit that he still did not have complete control over his, well, _gift_.

In some instances, Frederick could wish the transformation into being, and in others he could not. Sometimes it was reflexive, sometimes unresponsive. He turned wolf while in the shower once and had not been able to stop himself from shaking dry in the bedroom, spattering the walls and linens. Once, he had fallen asleep on the couch as usual, only to wake up in wolf form curled on the rug by the unlit hearth. He would never, ever forgive himself if he drifted off and woke up sleeping at the foot of Will’s bed or something equally mortifying. 

And yet, most times when he wandered out into the snow, even tempting fate by standing on the porch naked until he could barely open the door his hands were shaking so badly, he remained stubbornly man-shaped. 

“It’s like anything. It takes practice,” Will said.

“Turning into an animal is not skiing,” Frederick countered, around a mouthful of hamburger patty.

“I bet you do a lot of skiing.”

Frederick made a prim swipe across his lips with the paper napkin. “Chances are good I’d be doing it right now if not for this whole fiasco.”

Will raised a skeptical eyebrow.

Frederick shrugged. Of the four weeks of paid vacation Frederick had gotten at the hospital, he had taken few to none of the allotted days up until the point that Abel Gideon had gutted him. He had liked to believe that few things made him feel as inadequate as not working, and following the guilty relief he’d felt while recuperating, he’d pushed his battered body and traumatized mind twice as hard.

Was he languishing now, though? The fact of it had none of the guilt attendant to the idea of it. He had not taken time for himself while at the hospital because vacations are things you take with people, not by yourself. Here, however forced by circumstance the “holiday” was, he was out in a cabin, in the woods, in the snow...with another human being. Once again, the part of him that hated the thought was entirely and thankfully separate from the part that, in practice, didn’t mind it so much at all. 

“I tried skiing once,” Frederick said.

Will laughed. “Same. It was a disaster. Probably just due to the way I grew up. Without snow, in the tropics, basically. Around boats and water.”

“I did, too. Well, not in the tropics. Connecticut,” Frederick said. “Used to go yachting a lot.”

“You’re not really helping to dispel the stereotypes here.”

Frederick paused. “It wasn’t my yacht.”

***

He would later blame his failure to turn on the fact that he hadn’t heard the purr of the little sedan, but it wasn’t true. Frederick had wanted to meet her.

Why she did not turn around when she saw that Will’s car was not by the house he couldn’t know. He knew only that he was blinded by the beauty of her pale face in the weak winter daylight. Margot Verger removed her cashmere-lined gloves and knocked. 

Frederick, the man, rose from his seat in the wing chair and went to the door. 

“Oh,” Margot said. She was wearing a plum-colored lipstick. “I would say I believe I have the wrong house, but I know I don’t.”

“You’re looking for Will,” Frederick said.

“We’re all looking for something.”

Frederick was unsure what to say to that, so he remained silent for a moment. She smelled even better than he had imagined. His hands began to shake. “Will will—that is to say, Will _won’t_ be back until late. Probably. Would you like me to tell him you stopped by?”

Margot countered the question with another. “May I ask who you are?”

“Oh. I’m—” She wouldn’t know him, and was at least fairly sure that Will hadn’t discussed him with her. “Frederick,” he finished. 

She was the first one to extend her hand.

He wanted to raise it to his lips and kiss the knuckles, but he shook it instead. Her fingers were cold. “Uh, do you want to come in?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Striving to control his racing heart, Frederick stepped aside and let Margot Verger step into the living room. He was glad that he’d folded the blankets and straightened the pillows on the couch. 

“How do you know Will?”

“Just a friend. Just passing through.”

“You’re not his…”

It took Frederick a second to get what she was implying. Clearly Will had told her about his sexuality. “No!” Then, after reining himself in: “No. I’m just trying to, uh, find a job.”

“What does one do all the way out here in Wolf Trap, Virginia?”

“I’m a manager,” Frederick said, all in a rush. “A _plant_ manager. Of a plant. _Was_. It shut down.” At least in his flannel shirt and ripstop pants, a few days’ growth of beard on his chin and cheeks, he could surmise that he looked the part. 

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Would you like some coffee?” he asked.

“Do you have anything stronger?”

“Yeah, yeah. I mean, of course. You can, uh, take a seat.” He gestured to the relatively clean couch.

The way Margot swept her skirt underneath her thighs before she sat down made him weak in the knees. At the moment, Frederick did not look to be a person for whom poise and decorum would make him melt, but oh, he was. In a woman, that is. Every time he thought of decorum in terms of a man it was Hannibal-goddamn-Lecter that entered his mind. Perfect manners, perfect mannerisms. Like he was wearing an expertly tailored shell of a person under which seethed a formless _something_ that would make even the most literary heart of darkness quake in its proverbial boots. 

_A person suit._

Halfway to the kitchen to fetch the whiskey, Frederick was smacked sideways by the notion that he, too, was wearing a person suit. Imagining he could feel the wolf underneath the tight-stitched skin gave him courage.

He was smiling as he returned to the living room, where Margot had propped herself with one delicate hand against the half-wall that separated the living room and the dining room.

“What happened here?”

“Remodeling.”

“Will Graham doesn’t strike me as the type to remodel.”

“I think Will Graham would surprise you.” Frederick handed over the tumbler of whiskey, which Margot took with a gracious nod. “So tell me again,” he said, knowing full well she hadn’t told him anything; it was Will who had divulged the fact that they were both seeing Lecter: “How is it that you know Will?”

He wanted to see if she lied.

“We share the same psychiatrist.”

“Awfully unprofessional for this psychiatrist to be divulging the names of his other patients, don’t you think?” 

“You sound like you would know.”

A few minutes beforehand, Frederick would have been tripped up, would have stumbled over his tongue. “I consider myself an armchair student of the human psyche.”

“Ambitious, if you don’t mind my saying. For a plant manager.” The way she said it told Frederick she wasn’t buying his explanation at all.

Still, with the dauntless wolf slipping around inside his skin, he found he could be glib. “Running an entire operation is more demanding than one would initially think.”

Margot raised the glass to drink.

And there it was—the slight touch of the tongue before she put her lips against it. Frederick had to bite back a sigh. “Please, feel free to sit down.”

“It’s a very long drive down here, Frederick. I did quite a bit of sitting in my car. If it’s all right with you, I’d prefer to be on my feet. I’ll certainly take up your offer when I’d like to put them up for a while.”

Was she… _flirting_ with him?

Frederick took a deep breath. “So you’re in Baltimore.”

“Just outside. I live on a farm.”

“I suspect you live on a farm just as much as I’m a plant manager.”

She smiled. “No, it’s true. Well, to be fair, the estate at a meatpacking plant. It’s been in my family for several generations.”

_An heiress, then_. “So you’re a plant manager. It must smell lovely.”

“One gets used to the unpleasantries of life there.”

“Is that why you’re seeing Hannibal Lecter?” he asked. “The ‘unpleasantries?’”

“I see Will has told you about his doctor,” said Margot. “I imagine he shares many things with you.”

“More now that I’ve known him awhile.”

“Will is a very private person.”

Frederick took a sip of his whiskey. “If you’re here for information, I’m afraid I can’t be of much help.”

“No,” Margot said simply. 

Frederick couldn’t be sure if she was negating his question or agreeing that his information was useless to her.

“Tell me about yourself, Frederick.”

“I’m a simple man.”

She smiled, her chin tilted downward. “Oh, I very much doubt that.” 

As she stepped closer to him, into his space, he could smell not only her delicate perfume but the expensive makeup she wore. She placed her cheek next to his, her plum-painted lips by his ear. 

“I know who you are.”

Frederick, surprising himself, grabbed her shoulders and pushed her away so that her head wobbled a bit on her long, delicate neck. “What do you know?”

“Calm down,” she said, putting a hand up to brush an errant strand of hair from her forehead. “I don’t think you are who the papers say you are, Doctor Chilton.”

Frederick flinched at the mention of his title.

Margot smiled, wider this time. It was soft, genuine, but with a hint of predation behind it. “You were taken advantage of. When you were weak.”

“I was never weak.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them. “I just didn’t recognize myself.”

“A student of your own psyche, as well.”

“Of late.”

“What else have you been doing of late?” Margot asked.

She was _definitely_ flirting with him. “Getting in touch with nature,” he said, resisting the urge to wink.

“And what have you learned?”

Frederick smiled, this time giving her his own sliver of predatory joy. “It’s...wild.”

Margot traced the curve of his smile with her fingertip. “Being out here for so long, out in ‘nature,’ have _you_ become wild, Frederick?”

There was part of him that still feared an indignant—even a violent—brush-off if he tried to close the distance between them. That sliver was small enough for him to override and in an instant his lips were on hers. Frederick slid his fingers through the silken cascade of her hair (yes, the act unfolded like a romance novel in his overexcited head), touching the nape of her neck and drawing her closer.

And, wonder of wonders, she opened into the kiss, with a little whimper that went directly to his groin.

“Too wild?” he whispered against her lips when they broke.

“Not at all,” said Margot. “How’s this?” She slipped her hand down between them to cup Frederick’s crotch. Then she looked back up, eyes wide. “You’re a big boy, aren’t you?”

***

There was a trail of discarded clothing leading down the hallway to Will Graham’s bedroom, where Margot Verger lay with her head pillowed on Frederick’s shoulder, her hair spilling over his chest. 

The foremost question on his mind was, _Why?_ but he was determined not to examine the proverbial gift horse too thoroughly. Instead, he stroked her upper arm and tried to focus on getting his breath back. If he was ever tempted to wax poetic it might have been about that peach-fuzzed post-coital afterglow, had he felt he had any synapses left to fire.

What Margot said next didn’t exactly tatter the edges of that glow, but it functioned as a bit of a comedown. 

“Do you want to know why I’m seeing Doctor Lecter?”

_Not really_. “You’re curious about Will Graham?”

“Because I’d like to kill someone.” She punctuated this with a half-considered kiss to the crease of Frederick’s armpit. 

“Who would you like to kill?”

Margot went blithely on as if she had expected him to take such a shocking statement in stride, just as he had. “My brother.”

“Has your brother killed anyone?”

“Not that I know of. But he wants to. And someday he will,” she said.

“How do you know?” asked Frederick.

“Let me tell you what Mason does. He puts clothes on life-sized dummies and dangles them into a pit full of starving pigs. Do you know that pigs will eat anything? That includes human flesh. He rubs his dummies down with bacon grease, which I suppose also makes the poor things cannibals. When they’re hungry, they’re not picky. I know that he wants to do this to a live human being because as he lowers the surrogate body into the pit he plays his own special soundtrack: a chorus of screams. It whips the pigs into a frenzy. They devour whatever is put in front of them: plastic, clothing, meat. All of it. There’s nothing left. He brings up a dangling steel cable, twisted by the impressions of a hundred hungry teeth.”

“Dear god,” Frederick said. “Has he ever threatened to do that to you?”

Margot put her hand on his chest, threading her fingers through the hair there. “He doesn’t have to.”

“His existence is a threat.”

At this, she smiled. “So you understand.” A pause, then: “Who do you want to kill, Frederick?”

“The Chesapeake Ripper. The real one.”

“Ruin the man who ruined you.”

“I don’t just want to ruin him. I want him dead.”

Margot’s smile, to his surprise, grew wider. “I would settle for seeing Mason ruined.”

“Is that the reason for this?” Frederick asked.

She startled, pulling out of his embrace. “What? Why would you ask that?”

“I’m sorry.”

Studying his face for a moment, then brushing a hank of sweaty hair from his brow, she let her body relax again. “In a way, I suppose it is. My body is the last thing I control when it comes to Mason.”

“Well, uh,” Frederick said, “thanks for letting me…”

“Use it?” Margot laughed.

“God, no. That’s not what I meant at all.”

“And what if we’re using one another, Frederick? When you’re in prison, freedom is other prisoners.”

For no reason that he could discern, Frederick wanted to turn wolf at that time more than he had in the past week, but he was able to hold himself back. Instead, he settled for biting her earlobe gently.

Margot actually giggled.

“Then let’s use each other again,” he said.

***

Will came home long after Margot had gone. He stopped in the doorway when he saw Frederick sitting on the couch.

“You look...different.”

“Had a bit of a revelation today.”

“Were you able to turn?” Will asked.

“In a way.” Fielding Will’s puzzled look, he continued. “I have an idea. Do you happen to know where we can get hold of a mannequin?”


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I fell off the map there, folks. I'm baaaaack!

As seen by the casual observer, it may appear as though every day the strange man in the lonely cabin drags a nattily dressed scarecrow into a clearing in the front of his house. He hangs the figure from a pole, dusts off his hands, and goes inside. Not long afterward, a large dog bursts out of the house and savages the scarecrow within an inch of its rag-stuffed life. 

Dorothy Gale would have an aneurysm. 

This is how it might have appeared should someone have been watching Will Graham’s house for a few weeks. But Frederick Chilton knew there was no one watching. Even Will had ceased to play lookout after a while. By night, he and Frederick would stuff the increasingly tattered three-piece suit with rags, preparing for another day of “training.” In the morning, before Will went to work, he would spritz the dummy with the egregiously expensive aftershave that had been a gift from Hannibal (Will still insisted upon using obscene amounts of the “ship-on-the-bottle” kind). The good doctor’s effigy would then be hung in the yard—wrapped in the cloud of its exquisite scent like a pall—waiting for Frederick to wake up. 

Frederick had taken to sleeping in these days, a luxury he had never in his recent memory afforded himself. And he could not recall having slept better in his life. It was enough to know that “Hannibal” was out there.

In this new routine, Frederick would rise, cook up a couple of pounds of sausage and devour the lot of it, taking care not to look out the front window. Not just yet. Then, he would walk back to the living room and fold the sheets and blankets neatly on top of the couch. After this, he calmly took off the clothes he had slept in and leave them folded atop the sheets. Again, carefully avoiding looking out the window, as if savoring a fine wine before drinking. At this point, Buster (now adorned with a vivid pink scar) would be leaping around his heels.

He might reach down to give the dog a pat on the head. Then, and only then, would he glance through the pane. On those cloudy winter days, the Hannibal dummy cast no shadow, much like the man himself. And Frederick saw the dummy as he saw the man: a clever constituency of parts. He could tear the body, certainly, but he would also need to dissect the life in order to clear his own name. That would take much more than a few minutes of context-divorced savagery. It was not enough to lure Hannibal Lecter to a moonless and remote hillside; it was doubtful he’d take the bait in any case. Will had been right all along in continuing his therapy. Taking the Ripper down would necessitate getting inside Hannibal’s mind much in the way he winnowed into those of his own patients.

Not just getting into his head, but into his life. Into his home. These were the considerations that preoccupied Frederick Chilton as he stood, stark naked, on the liminal zone of Will Graham’s porch. The frigid air would clutch and drag at his bare skin, and he could totter on both literal and figurative thresholds alike before he tumbled forward, letting the change happen. Hands would be paws before they hit the snow. 

However, as much as he wanted to indulge the cliché of allowing instinct full rein, Frederick felt more and more that he did not _transform_ every day on that porch so much as he _split_. By all practical estimations, the wolf surged off the porch and set to rending the doctor’s likeness to increasingly pathetic shreds. Hence what any observer might have seen. But the man sometimes seemed to hang back. It was as if Frederick watched himself, gaining patience just as he lost it utterly. At times, he thought, as he clutched and tore at a flailing stuffed “limb,” he might be content to live this way forever: brutalizing an idea for the sake of a few more wrested bits of self-knowledge.

Those bits, so long ignored, were precious to him. But at the same time, simply put, he wanted his life back. No, not necessarily _his_ life, but a life. Frederick was not dim-witted enough to think that the status quo would ever be as it had been.

Nor, now, was he thick enough to fear the change. Not only the physical one that came upon him every day now at his behest, but the shift in his mindset. Turning into an animal had turned him into a man. 

So now the man watched and was carried along for the ride as the animal dug its hind claws into the splintery boards of the porch and leapt into the snow. In a bare few bounds he was at the Hannibal-scarecrow’s throat. Last time he had swallowed a button. This time the shirt collar hung open and stained with saliva. His clever teeth snatched the redolent, oil-soaked rag at the dummy’s neck. Gravity brought him to the ground again, and with him came the rag, tearing through the buttons of the waistcoat until it hung at the beltline like entrails.

If wolves could smile, Frederick might have.

As much as they had sharpened his man’s wits, the practice sessions on the Hannibal dummy had sharpened his animal’s urges, as well. One day, a couple weeks into his and Will’s routine, he woke up in wolf form with the very unaccustomed desire to kill something. Something real—warm and quivering and terrified and alive...though not for long. As if anticipating this mood, Buster waited by the door, prodding the jamb with his wet nose and whining. 

Wolf-Frederick opened his mouth to say, “Okay,” but it came out as a yip. Buster took this as encouragement and began leaping up and down. Still uncertain he would be able to turn back right away, or that a change to human form would deprive him of this delicious yearning, the wolf squirmed its way out of Frederick’s t-shirt and went to the door.

Which was firmly closed.

“Whuff.” _Damn_.

It took only a couple of futile tries at grasping the knob between his jaws—an idiotic and slobbery endeavor—before he realized it just wasn’t going to work. Feeling more trapped than he had in a couple of months, Frederick snuffled, trotting from window to window and testing the latches, nearly rubbing his nose raw in the process. In the bathroom, he felt a slice of cool wind from the small window to the left of the sink. Will must have cracked it to cut the steam. Frederick was able to stand with his paws on the window ledge, wedge his snout into the frigid rectangle of space between sill and glass, and push upward. By the end of it he was jumping and knocking his nose painfully against the window frame to get it to rise just a few more inches. 

Dropping back to the tile, a little dazed, he was struck by an urge to give up, to go back and burrow into the blankets on the couch. As a man, Frederick had never been good at follow-through. Executing a threat on a patient, keeping his New Year’s resolution to get in shape, calling women back after tentatively non-disastrous first dates. He decided he would be damned if he wasn’t going to follow his wolf-brain’s primal lead and get out there into the snow to destroy something a little higher-stakes than a rag-stuffed dummy.

Still, the window was a bit higher than those in the living room and kitchen, and it had a screen. Deciding against risking his tender snout again, Frederick crouched and sprang up, much as he had when going for Randall Tier’s throat, but this time thrusting his paws forward, looking as if he were about to dance a waltz. The mesh bowed dangerously as his heavy paws punched it, but then the plastic frame of the screen snapped free and whorls of snow skittered across the white porcelain of the sink as they swirled in from outside.

Frederick placed his forepaws on the sill and readied himself to jump when he heard a whine from somewhere near his hind paws. He’d forgotten about Buster.

_You can’t possibly want to come._ Then, _How am I going to get you through that window?_

Buster whined again, shuffling with a clacking sound on the tile. 

Wolf-Frederick heaved a canine groan, causing his furry chops to flutter, and hesitated only a moment before finding as delicate a grip as he could on the scruff of Buster’s neck. If he missed, the impact could knock the little dog unconscious or split his head open. Then Frederick would have to spend the hours until Will came home licking blood from a friend instead of from a kill.

_A friend_?

The obtrusive thought nearly caused him to set Buster back down, but he could tell the dog was trying not to squirm with excitement. Frederick blinked once, twice, then crouched again and leapt. The impact of the sill on his ribcage made him spit Buster out the window onto the snow below. Casting a satisfied thought to the fate of the hideous, outdated wallpaper, Frederick scrabbled with his hind claws against the bathroom wall. He could feel the sharp pressure of the window frame on his back, and for a brief moment he was sure he’d end up stuck, Winnie-the-Pooh-style, half in and half out of the window of Will Graham’s bathroom. But then he placed his forepaws on the clapboards and hauled, and suddenly his hindquarters were through to the other side. His tumble into the snow was indelicate, but he soon righted himself, shaking snow from his thick coat. 

Buster was dancing on the frozen ground.

“Whuff.” _Okay. Let’s go_.

By contrast to Frederick’s slow, considered slinking, Buster proved to be an aggressive and frankly frightening hunter. He joyously dug up a nest of hibernating field mice and wagged his stump of a tail while he snapped at least two furry little necks with a sharp shake of his head. Once upon a time, man-Frederick might have fainted. Now he only watched, impassive, waiting for larger game.

It was a luxuriant exercise. Every movement in the bare scrub, every sliver of shadow in the copse of trees, could have been something, but he found he didn’t have to dash after it each and every time. He could investigate or let it slide at whim, a capricious hanging judge. Until one particularly clumsy pattern of snaps and creaks drew his attention. Peering around the slow-waving trunk of a birch was a tapered head—wet, black nose and a blaze of white fur leading up a dished muzzle to wet, black eyes. Prey eyes, set wide on the sides of the head. Frederick slammed himself down into the deep snow. When he raised his head again, Buster had done the same. The little dog was vibrating, but this time it was from fear.

The doe, though she was ragged and starved-looking, was still much bigger than Buster. Frederick looked over, trying to keep one eye on his terrified friend and one on the terrified deer. Buster caught his gaze and calmed a little. Steam coiled up from wolf-Frederick’s nostrils like plumes of smoke from a dragon’s snout. 

Here, the man returned. Not physically but mentally. Vacillating where he had not before in bringing about the messy end of Randall Tier. A creaking bough far away in the stand of trees caused the deer to tense its hindquarters, tufted white tail poised in the air for imminent flight. Silent as the snow under his paws, Frederick was in motion before the deer’s flight could begin.

Not as perfectly positioned at the beast’s neck this time, he clutched and scrabbled with his paws, much as he had on the windowsill, along the prominent knobs of the deer’s spine. But when his teeth caught meat on the shoulder, he bit down, feeling the stretch and snap of skin. The deer grunted. It could only wander a few panicked steps with Frederick on its back like a toothed knapsack, then it twisted in a helpless, graceful spiral and fell, snow pillowing its fall.

Frederick pried the tips of his fangs from the doe’s shoulder blade and leapt over its shivering carcass to clamp down on its neck. Only then did the deer scream, when it seemed least possible that it could have. It was cut short with a gurgle as Frederick gave it a violent, spine-rattling shake. Gouts of red spilled onto white—steaming, melting.

Buster gave a yip.

Frederick looked up over the deer’s death throes to see the dog bounding toward him. Buster ducked under one still-kicking leg and carefully studied Frederick’s blood-covered snout. Frederick licked his lips. Once. Twice.

Buster whined and nudged at the slight bulge of the doe’s belly. When Frederick closed his eyes, he could smell the still-warm viscera beneath the cooling flesh. His lips curled upward as he prepared to bite.

***

He was fully expecting to take a shower, even after having carefully cleaned his muzzle in the damp, new snow on the far side of the destroyed deer. That had been fun. A real bonding experience. Buster’s gaze seemed twice as adoring now that they had partaken of mutual murder.

Thoughts of returning to his man-shape flew from his head, though, when he saw Will’s car parked outside the house. Next to it was Margot’s little roadster.

He was about to attempt a bark when Buster beat him to the punch, running like a yapping patch of mottled snow up onto the porch. The screen door opened; it was clear that either Will or Margot had only just arrived. 

Frederick knew that she knew about him. He didn’t know if Will knew that she knew. He wanted to find out, but not by way of suddenly appearing as a naked man in the snow. No, that sight was saved for Margot alone. This he remembered with a _frisson_ of pleasure.

“Buster,” Will said. “What are you doing out there?”

Frederick ambled up, trying to hide what were probably still apparent rust-colored stains on his snout. 

“Flapjack!” Will said.

Frederick expected Margot to burst out laughing at the ridiculous name, but she remained somber as he climbed the porch steps and was ushered into the house. The reek of blood was still strong in his nostrils, but he caught a whiff of Margot’s perfume. And...something else.

_Distress_.

He hadn’t noticed it before, but she had a handkerchief out in her still-gloved hand and was dabbing at the corners of her eyes, trying to retain composure. Frederick, the man, was suddenly so affected that the wolf lost the strength in his hindquarters and fell with a flat thump to the mat. Something was wrong; something was very wrong. 

“Can I get you a drink?” Will asked.

Margot sniffled, reining in hard on the emotion that sizzled just below the surface of her habitual coolness. “I don’t know why I came here.”

“I know why you didn’t go to Hannibal.”

“Everything I have. He has to take it away.” Margot also seemed to go limp, pouring into one of the living room chairs with the fluidity of a fainting silent-film heroine. 

_Hannibal had taken something from her_?

“There are other psychiatrists,” Will said, obviously out of his element. “I’ll help you find one.”

“No,” she said. A tear slipped down her cheek. 

It took every ounce of of willpower Frederick could draw upon not to go up to her, to lick that tear away with his blood-tainted tongue.

“No?” Will asked.

“He wants my mind, too. Hannibal will give it to him,” Margot said.

“Hannibal is not a scrupulous man, but I know that he won’t betray your confidence to Mason,” Will told her.

“I told F— I told _someone_ once that the only thing Mason doesn’t control is my body. And now not even that is true.”

It tore Frederick’s heart to see her so undone, on the edge of collapse. He knew she wouldn’t give in, and that was why he mustn’t, either. She would retain her facade, and he his, both helpless again in the wide wake of their respective tormentors. 

“I don’t understand,” Will said. It was a simple, honest statement.

Margot put her face gently into her hands for just a moment, letting the kid leather cool her flushed cheeks. “I was pregnant.”

“What?”

“He took it. Mason.” 

“What? When?”

“He found out and he took it, and he made sure it would never happen again.” At that, Margot looked directly at Frederick, though she could not know to whom she spoke. 

Will moved closer to her, put a hand on her shoulder. 

That hand should have been Frederick’s, and he ached with the knowledge of it. 

“Your brother forced you to have an abortion?” Will asked.

A nod.

“When was this?”

Margot paused, then spoke in a voice just above a whisper. “Two days ago.”

“What?”

Frederick leapt to his paws, every muscle strung like a bowline. 

“He brought a doctor,” Margot said. “I don’t know what he did. I only know that...it hurt. It still hurts.”

“We should get you to a hospital,” said Will. 

“It won’t make any difference,” she said, putting her head in her hands again. A bead of sweat trickled from her hairline down the finger of her glove.

“You’re not well,” Will said. “We have to get you to a hospital. Now.”

Shaking her head, Margot tried to stand, but she fell back against the chair, its cushions puffing dust into the warm glow of the lamp beside her. 

Frederick cried out, then. 

“Flapjack, stop!” Will shouted. 

It must have come out as a bark. Of course...of course Will wouldn’t know. 

Margot was trying again to rise, but she collapsed this time into Will’s arms. He bore her up and carried her toward the door. “Stay,” he told Frederick.

The command went unheeded. Frederick bounded out onto the snow at Will’s heels. Will shot him a look. It was agony, but it was true. He couldn’t come. He couldn’t risk slowing them down, having Margot fail to receive the care she needed because the ersatz “Chesapeake Ripper” had come out of hiding to hold her hand.

He stopped, planted his hindquarters, and howled into the coming sunset.

“I know,” Will said, trying to bundle Margot into his car. “I know.” But it seemed to be directed toward the wolf rather than the woman. 

Frederick watched the headlights recede over the hill. Then he bore down on the half-savaged “Hannibal” dummy in the yard and tore at it until the scraps were unrecognizable as fabric, much less clothing. 

Just as he did most mornings, the man watched while the wolf did its work. And more horribly, just as he was in the mornings, the man was trapped in his patient, ticking thoughts.

_Two days ago. Two days_. 

The baby. It wasn’t likely, but it had been a couple of weeks. Margot’s baby. It might have been _his_.

Having tortured its body to the point of exhaustion—first with the deer, then with the dummy—the wolf part of Frederick dragged itself up to the porch to meet its whirling man-mind. He fell to the boards, panting gobbets of steam into the the frigid air. At some point, he must have turned back again, because Frederick felt tears on very human cheeks. 

And he knew even through those tears, with the wolf’s lethal certainty, that Hannibal Lecter would not be the only man who needed to pay for his crimes before Frederick Chilton was avenged.


	15. Chapter 15

Will shook his head. “This changes everything. Compromises it all.” He said it with resignation rather than anger.

That pissed Frederick off. “How does it change anything?”

“Your focus is off.”

“Just how the hell do you know? Mason Verger might have killed my—” He stopped short of saying _child_. “Hannibal Lecter took away my life.”

“I saw what you did to the effigy,” Will said, his voice going quiet. “Were you imagining it was Mason?”

“That’s beside the point,” Frederick spat.

“It’s precisely on point.”

Frederick shook his head, trying his best to look disgusted. Which he was. And afraid and angry. Worried about Margot, a woman with whom he had spent a single debauched afternoon. 

“She used you,” Will said quietly.

“I’m aware.”

“Yes, but you don’t know _why_. When you were out flopping around in the snow a few weeks ago, she was telling me that her brother is the heir to the Verger fortune. That is, of course, unless she were to have a child. Which didn’t seem likely to their deceased parents considering she’s as queer as I am.”

“So it _was_ mine.” Frederick sat back and crossed his arms.

“Most likely, yes,” said Will. “And how exactly would that have played out? Even if she carried the baby to term, do you think she’d let you know your part in it?”

“Don’t make her out to be the villain here,” Frederick said. “That’s her brother.”

“No. Mason Verger is incidental. You want your life back, you have to take care of Hannibal.”

“You mean ‘take care of him for _you_.’”

“You’re the linchpin in this. I’ve said so since the beginning.”

“Since you knew what I was. What I _am_ ,” Frederick said, getting up from his chair. “I’m just about sick of people _using_ me, Will.”

A pause. “You’re right.”

Frederick, who had opened his mouth to speak once again, shut it so hard his teeth clacked together. “I’m what?”

Will took a deep breath. “I’ve been relying on you—or, rather, the _idea_ of you—as the instrument of my revenge. Biding my time, ready to help you along but not to become too involved. I was content to sit back and let it happen. Or never happen, I don’t know.”

Frederick furrowed his brow. “I don’t understand.”

“Hating Hannibal—hating _anyone_ —is so _exhausting_ , Frederick. Build that on top of the fact that most of the time I am just trying to pass as an average person, someone human, instead of this collection of other people’s nightmares.”

“Like him.”

Will nodded. “Too much like him. It would be easy if we existed in opposite hemispheres, if we’d never met, Hannibal and I. But that’s not the way it is. And now, now that I _know_ what he is and what he’s capable of, I feel I have a duty to…”

“Put him down,” Frederick finished.

“The dog metaphors are getting disturbing.”

“I never thought I’d hear that come out of your mouth.”

Frederick and Will smiled at one another. “I honestly never thought I’d say this, either,” Will said, “but having you here has been a constant. A comfort, even. Which is way around left field considering how much I loathed you when I was locked up.”

“Hating people is exhausting,” Frederick said. 

“And you’re a good man, Frederick. Misunderstood—and don’t I know how that feels—but a good guy.” Will winked over his coffee mug. “You’re getting to be a pretty good dog, too.”

“I hate you.”

“No, you don’t.”

Frederick smiled. “No. I don’t. Thank you, Will. For being my friend. That’s something I haven’t had in a long time.”

Will leaned back in his chair, an easy smile on his face. “It’s been, surprisingly, a pleasure.” Almost at once he sat up again, expression turning serious. “But as much as I would like it to last, we have a job to do.”

At this, Frederick smiled, but it was a cold slice of white teeth in the dimness of the kitchen. “Then it’s good that I have a plan.”

***

“Are you sure you can stay like this?”

Yes, Frederick thought. _You’ve asked me the same thing fifty times over the course of this drive, and it’s always the same answer._

“Whuff.”

Will had just brought his car to a stop on a dim and quiet street in Baltimore. It was one street over from the home of Hannibal Lecter. In Will’s back seat lay a large, black dog (wolf, really) who wouldn’t be able to be Frederick Chilton for at least the foreseeable future. 

Frederick’s canine heart was pounding, but he was almost certain that he wasn’t as nervous as Will was. 

“What if Alana doesn’t come out all day?” Will was asking. “What if she just decides to stay in there, I don’t know, lounging in Hannibal’s shirt and eating truffles? If Hannibal spots you, he might call Animal Control. Or worse, he might call _me_.”

Frederick whined and raised one furry eyebrow. _Now or never, Will_. 

“This is a bad idea. We should just stick with my part of the plan. Make it look like I’ve killed Freddie Lounds and am bringing her...uh, _part of her_...to Hannibal. For all we know, Alana could just take you home. You’d be stuck.”

Fed up, Frederick barked, the sound within the tiny confines of the sedan making Will flinch. He pawed at the door.

“Okay,” Will said. “Okay.” He got out of the car, leaving the driver’s door slightly open. He scanned the street, then opened the door for Frederick to hop out onto the cold pavement. “You sure you’re going to be okay?”

Touched, Frederick nodded his shaggy head in a very un-dog-like gesture. 

“Okay, let’s give it a practice run,” Will whispered.

Frederick lifted his right paw just slightly into the air and began hobbling away from Will. The gait was awkward, and it caused him to have to hold his head down a little to keep balance. That might be good; it could possibly make him look submissive. He added a pained whine just for effect.

The lines of concern etched into Will’s face began to smooth a little. He nodded. “I won’t have any way to get in contact with you. If I come to Hannibal’s place and you’re not there, there’s literally nothing I can do.”

Frederick, standing strong on all four paws now, nodded again. _You’ll just have to trust me._

As if Will had heard, he nodded in response, then motioned for Frederick to move to the curb so he could drive. 

Frederick trotted over to the side of the road. 

Inside the car, Will paused before shutting his door again. The steam of his breath leaked out, ghosting into the night for several seconds before the door clicked shut. Then the car was off and running, its tires whispering against the asphalt, taillights receding into the cold night. 

Frederick watched it disappear around the corner, then bowed his head into the wind and began moving on silent paws toward Hannibal’s house. 

Dawn was breaking in a clear sky over the buildings visible from the Harbor. The sunlight would be welcome. Even through his thick fur, Frederick was starting to shiver. Before his transformation, he was never the kind of man who bore discomfort uncomplainingly, but now he stood stoic behind a manicured bush at the far end of the front lawn and waited for someone to open the red-painted door. 

As it happened, that person was Alana Bloom. Frederick tried and failed to get over his disgust at the fact that she was sleeping with the Chesapeake Ripper, but he couldn’t let that derail his purpose. Alana was just another victim. 

She tossed her long, dark hair over her shoulder as she shut the door behind her, then stayed for a moment on the stoop to pull on her gloves. 

Frederick waited until her foot was hovering above the first step to come out from under cover. 

She didn’t see him right away, but she stopped, tottering on her high heels, when she caught sight of him. Her gloved hands went out in front of her, a protective gesture. 

Frederick let his tongue loll out but kept his course along the street, sneaking glances at Alana while favoring the right paw. He stumbled and whined, then collapsed down to his haunches and began to lick at the “injury.”

“Oh,” said Alana. It was a drawn-out note of sympathy. She took a step toward him.

Frederick raised his head and whined again.

“Who do you belong to?” Alana asked. Just as Frederick suspected she might, she crouched and held out a slim hand. 

Obliging, he limped over just far enough that he could sniff at her. She smelled like perfume and some sort of rich breakfast. God knew what she’d eaten in there. Frederick hoped his shudder looked like a pathetic shiver. 

Alana duck-walked just a little closer, her arm still extended. She could touch the end of Frederick’s snout. He licked her fingertip.

“Aww,” she said. “You’re beautiful.” Looking up and down the street as if she expected an owner to materialize out of nowhere, she rose to her feet.

Frederick was seized with a sudden panic that she would just leave him there. 

But she walked over to him and knelt right by his side. 

He had to admit that the scratching behind the ears felt pretty good. 

“We’ve got to get you some help,” she said. Alana gave another glance up and down the deserted street, then walked toward the front door, possibly intending to find some tasty morsel or another to lure him with. 

Not willing to think about what treat might come out of Hannibal’s pantry, Frederick simply limped after her, bumping his nose into her calf when she reached the stoop. 

“You want to come in?” she asked.

Not wanting to play it up too much, he only looked at her. Besides, Frederick probably couldn’t have whined if he wanted to. His heart was crammed in his throat; the man who had ruined his life was just beyond that door, probably sitting in a wing chair in silk pinstripe pajamas or whatever pretentious… _wait_. At his old home, Frederick had three pairs of silk pinstripe pajamas.

_Ugh_ , he thought, and it helped to calm his nerves a little.

Alana leaned down and whispered to Frederick, “Hannibal’s going to kill me if you get snowy paw prints all over his good rugs, but between you and me he’s got enough money to clean them.” She patted his neck.

Frederick was struck by two things in equal measure: horror at the flippancy with which Alana, not knowing the man’s true nature, used words like “kill.” The second was sadness at the note of genuine affection for Lecter in her voice. He hated to break her heart, but leaving things be could mean that heart ended up, literally, skewered on one of the good doctor’s dining tables.

Thirdly, and a moment later, he was able to deduce that Hannibal wasn’t actually there at the time. Perhaps he’d left early to do some work at the office. Perhaps he hadn’t come home the previous night. Whatever it was, Alana did not seem concerned. 

A rush of food smells poured out onto the stoop as the door opened. Frederick licked his chops to keep from salivating on those precious rugs as he stepped indoors, almost forgetting to favor his right paw. He had eaten before leaving Will’s house, only because he hadn’t known how long it would be before he would be able to have another meal. But the scent was still tempting.

_People_ , he reminded himself, pushing aside the memory of Randall Tier’s blood washing down his throat. Whether the first or second thought, it dried up the spit factory pretty quickly. Would he be able to kill another man when the time came? Now that it had the very human hallmark of premeditation?

Alana reached for his neck again, presumably to find a collar, but she quickly realized he had none. “What’s your name, boy?”

Frederick licked her face, feeling more than a little lecherous and enjoying it probably more than a little too much. 

Alana only laughed. Will was right. Dogs could get away with _so much_. She beckoned him into the sitting room, where a sizable pile of embers was still glowing in the hearth. “Just rest here, you poor thing.”

After being out in the cold, Frederick certainly was tempted to plant himself in front of the fireplace and snooze, but he couldn’t be seen to understand what she was saying. As soon as she went to leave the room, he started to follow, carefully lifting the correct paw. 

Alana turned. “Sit,” she said, with an interrogative upturn to the word suggesting she had no idea how well the command might be heeded. 

Aware that he would have to pretend to be a well-trained dog even to get within arm’s reach of Hannibal Lecter, Frederick sat. 

It was worth it for the smile on Alana’s face. “Good boy! Stay.”

With a gratuitous whimper, Frederick settled down on his belly to await Alana’s return. 

***

He supposed it was inevitable that the afternoon had to end when he heard the sound of the door opening and closing. Of clots of snow being stomped off boots. 

Cold dread twisted into Frederick’s belly, and he raised his head from Alana’s lap. They had been sitting there for the better part of two hours—Alana with a glass of good wine (Frederick could smell it, though the complexities were now strange as filtered through his sensitized canine nose) and a book, and he curled up on the rug trying not to nudge her hand too often to beg for ear scratches.

“Alana?”

It had been a long time since Frederick had heard that cultured voice speak. It chilled him.

“You didn’t go into your office this morning—” Hannibal stopped short just as he cleared the doorframe. “What’s this?”

Wide-eyed, trying not to tremble, Frederick forced his tail to thump once or twice on the carpet.

Alana gave Hannibal a guilty look, or what was supposed to be one had she felt in the least guilty. “This guy was wandering around the neighborhood. I was hoping you could take a look at him.”

“I’m no more a veterinarian than you are, Alana.” There was a sharp edge of irritability in the statement that Hannibal worked quickly to mask. He walked over, placed two fingers below her chin, and tipped it upward, bending down to meet her lips. Frederick tried not to gag. Hannibal knelt. “Where is he hurt?”

_Don’t touch me don’t touch me don’t touch me…_

At least the fingers Hannibal ran through Frederick’s thick fur were still gloved. 

“It’s his paw,” she said.

Frederick hove to his paws and lifted the right one, dutiful, as if for examination. 

“He’s really a very well-trained dog,” said Alana. “Someone must be missing him. He’s very beautiful.” 

Hannibal narrowed his eyes. 

For a moment, Frederick was terrified that his disguise had been seen through as easily as if one of the diaphanous curtains over the bay window had been parted.

“You and Will,” said Hannibal, but there was fondness in the tone, whether forced or not. He reached out and took Frederick’s large paw in his hand. 

“I’m not suggesting we keep him,” Alana said.

Frederick yelped, but it was her words that made him startle.

“He does appear to have some pain there,” Hannibal said nonetheless, turning to Alana. “I believe I have a text or two on quadrupedal musculoskeletal anatomy. But,” he stood up, “we should take him to a real veterinarian to be certain.”

“I’ll take him tomorrow.”

“I can bind the paw for tonight,” Hannibal offered. However cool and appraising he was with others, he was genuinely solicitous with Alana. Frederick, conflicted, wasn’t entirely sure whether he was disgusted or jealous.

Alana nodded. “We should put up a notice on the community association website. Take a picture. I’d just hate for some poor kid to be missing his pet.”

“This is not a child’s dog,” Hannibal said. 

Swallowing his thankfully diminished pride, Frederick sat back on his haunches and then rolled onto his belly. 

“Aww!” Alana nearly shouted, scrubbing at the fur on his barrel chest.

Though he didn’t touch him, Hannibal seemed pleased with the ersatz display of submission.

“I wonder if he’s a show dog,” Alana said.

“Possible,” Hannibal said. “He is an adult dog, and yet is not neutered.”

Frederick rolled back onto his side, laying his chin on Alana’s leg once again. He didn’t want someone as handy and prodigious with a blade as Hannibal Lecter checking out his bait and tackle, as it were.

Hannibal stood up. Giving a fond look at Alana and a somewhat more distrustful one toward Frederick, he said, “I’ll go get a roll of bandages. We’ll see how he feels in the morning.”

The way Alana’s face glowed told Frederick that he was safe, at least for the night. 

***

A roll of gauze wrapped around his “injured” leg, he spent the long night curled up by the ashes of the fire, but slept poorly, hoping that he would not drift off and shift back. To have either one of the house’s occupants come downstairs to find a very surprised, very naked Frederick Chilton on the carpet would be, to say the least, disastrous.

It wasn’t exactly the quietest environment in which to sleep, either. For a good hour, Frederick had been forced to suffer through a chorus of loud moans punctuated by the Morse code thwacking of a headboard against the wall. Obviously, the spark was still well alight in Hannibal and Alana’s newfound intimacy. Frederick had put his paws over his ears and tried to forget how badly he had to piss.

The urge was impossible to ignore the next morning. When Alana wandered out, wearing one of Hannibal’s shirts and a pair of too-large socks, Frederick ran right to the door and began scratching at the frame.

“What is it, boy?”

He whined.

“Oh. Oh! I never took you outside last night. God, I hope you didn’t pee on the rug,” she said.

_As if he would._

Alana looked around near the door as if she expected to find a collar and leash. Then she shook her head of frizzed curls and opened the door. Frederick ran outside as fast as his legs would carry him...completely forgetting to limp.

He found the relief he was looking for behind one of Hannibal’s bushes. Though the idea still made him uncomfortable on a fundamental level, ridding himself of some more _solid_ byproducts on Hannibal Lecter’s lawn was a tempting proposition.

Alana, her socks wet with dew, poked her head around the bush just when he’d finished. “Hey, boy. Looks like you’re feeling better today.”

The full force of what he’d done, or forgotten to do, hit Frederick hard then. No point in trying to play it up now. He trotted over to her on four good legs, panting in what he hoped looked like a happy manner.

“Come on,” Alana said, looking at him with the same unreserved love that Frederick saw in Will’s eyes when he looked at his canine hoard. “Let’s go back inside.”

As little as Frederick wanted to admit it, he was _starving_. Alana had bought dog food for him yesterday, but he’d turned his nose up at it. Truth be told, he had tried a bit of the dogs’ kibble while back at Will’s place (and didn’t some part of him miss the cozy cabin in its sea of snowbound fields?), but it had disgusted him. The idea of being forced to choke down more of the stuff, however, was growing less and less nauseating as his stomach complained more loudly. 

“You hungry, boy?” Alana asked. “You think you can eat today?”

When Frederick followed her into the kitchen, he saw her opening a can of the same fetid jelly she’d tried to foist off on him yesterday. Dutifully, he went over to investigate, but his half-human palate was still so put off by the smell that he turned away and lay on the floor, hoping he looked at least in part as miserable as he felt.

Alana knelt by him, patting his head. “Oh, come on. Please eat. I know it’s not what you’re used to at home, but you have to eat.” She looked around the room, then rose, going over to the refrigerator. Then she shot Frederick a conspiratorial smile. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” she said.

Out of the fridge she pulled a resealable glass container. Frederick picked up the scents from inside the refrigerator door and he stood up, dancing on the kitchen tile. _Please please please._

“Oh, that’s what you want,” Alana said. She pried the lid from the container, dug out a meatball dripping in some dark red-brown sauce, and held it between her forefinger and thumb. “Sit,” she said. 

Frederick sat.

She tossed the meatball to him and he caught it mid-air. God, it tasted like heaven.

This time, Alana held the meatball in one hand and put out the other hand toward him. “Shake,” she said.

Frederick lifted the bandaged paw and placed it lightly in her palm.

“Good boy!” 

Another glorious meatball sailed his way.

He was cleaning out the last drops of sauce from the container with a probing tongue when he heard another set of footsteps. Hannibal (in damned pinstripe pajamas, of course), stopped at the entrance to the kitchen.

“Alana?”

“He won’t eat the dog food I bought. I had to feed him _something_.”

“I had been chilling those for hors d’oeuvres at tonight’s gala cocktail hour.”

Frederick almost rolled his eyes, barely thinking that a few months ago he may very well have been attending one of those cocktail parties.

Alana walked over to Hannibal and kissed him lightly on the cheek. “I’m sorry, darling.”

_Darling? Eugh_.

“Look,” she said. “His foot’s much better.” She crouched and gestured for Frederick, who walked over to her.

“Hm,” was all Hannibal said.

“And look at this,” she said, her face lighting up. 

At least Frederick was winning one person’s heart. His own heart ached for a moment when he thought of Margot, of the afternoon they had spent together. Of how he’d last seen her…

“The blood sausage, please,” Hannibal said. “It needs to be eaten anyway.”

Alana pulled half of a scab-colored link out of the refrigerator.

Frederick’s stomach dropped. What if it tasted horrible? Could Hannibal be doing this to him on purpose? 

Cheerfully wielding one of Hannibal’s keen knives, Alana sliced off a sizable chunk of sausage, then divided it into four smaller pieces. “Okay,” she said. “Sit.”

Frederick dutifully dropped to his haunches.

The blood sausage seemed to fly through the fragrant kitchen air in slow motion, and before he knew it he’d snapped his jaws on it, only to find...it was surprisingly good. Frederick swallowed it down, remembering once again the taste of Randall Tier’s hot blood, the blood of the deer he and Buster had eviscerated. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Good dog,” Alana said, another piece of sausage in her fingers. “Lay down.”

Frederick complied. 

They ran through “shake,” “roll over” and “jump,” each ending with a piece of the surprisingly savory treat in Frederick’s jaws. 

Then Hannibal took up a piece of the sausage. He looked at Alana, indulgent. “Speak,” he told Frederick.

A strange and suspect command to give. Frederick still obliged him with a soft, “Whuff.”

“Now give him the treat, Hannibal. Don’t be cruel.”

_Don’t be cruel. Ha._

Hannibal extended his hand, palm upward, the sausage piece directly in the center. It was both a test and a display of dominance. _Food will come from my hand._

Shoving down his nausea, Frederick, as delicately as he could, took the piece of sausage from the hand of the man who had essentially ruined him.

“Hm,” Hannibal said again. He paused for a moment. “Play dead,” he said.

Frederick stood stock-still.

“Maybe he doesn’t know that one,” said Alana.

_You’re goddamn right_ , thought Frederick.


	16. Chapter 16

_I am in Hannibal Lecter’s bed_ was the first thing that occurred to Frederick when he woke from his snooze. The second, logically, was, _I am in bed with Alana Bloom_. She smelled good, but different. Not the way he remembered Margot smelling, and his heart twinged just a little.

He gave a noisy, whining, dog-like yawn and licked his chops, predictably prompting cooing and petting from Alana. 

“I have no idea how I’m going to get all the dog hair out of these sheets,” she told him. “I’ll change them before Hannibal gets back.” She ruffled the fur of his neck and whispered with soft lips beside his ear, “He can honestly be such a tight-ass sometimes.”

It heartened Frederick to hear even these affectionate disparagements. Poor Alana. She was in for the letdown of her life—beyond the scope of anything even indistinct and ominous nightmares could show her—if he and Will managed to accomplish their objective.

“Hey,” she said, in happy oblivion at least for now. “I have a present for you.”

Frederick leapt from the bed and followed Alana downstairs, hoping it was some sort of culinary delight, preferably of the dead-animal persuasion. He stopped short, though, nails scratching on the tile of the kitchen, when she reached into a paper sack and pulled out a length of woven cord...with a studded collar attached.

“Walkies?” she asked, the thick leather collar waving ominously on the end of the leash.

_Be a dog be a dog be a dog_. He managed a half-hearted leap with his forepaws, trepidation preventing anything further.

None of Will’s dogs had collars or leashes; they just roamed. To be honest, the thought had barely occurred to Frederick that being inside the city now he might need to abide by stricter rules. It had never occurred to him before that he would have to abide by rules made for canines at all, full stop.

Nonetheless, he came over when Alana beckoned, standing as still as he could and allowing her to buckle the collar, stiff in its newness, around his neck. If that sort of thing had been man-Frederick’s bag, he would have been so turned on by now as to be paralyzed. But, to what would have been some of his former patients’ slack-jawed surprise, he preferred gentle lovemaking to any kink-studded fantasies. 

_Oh, Margot_.

Now he only suffered a bit of anticipation and embarrassment. It wasn’t entirely unlike being led around by a necktie, especially under Alana’s gentle touch. By the time they had gone down the steps and were out on the street, Frederick was growing used to the sensation. He made certain to stay at Alana’s heels, preferring to cut the risk of choking himself out. 

Soon enough, though, embarrassment was starting to turn to discomfort, and it wasn’t because of the leash. No, nature itself had yet a greater indignity to bestow on him. He began to walk slowly, pretending to sniff at bushes and mailboxes.

_You’re going to have to bite the bullet._

“Do you need to stop?” Alana asked, preempting him on some instinctual level. She reached into her coat pocket and brandished a plastic bag.

Frederick hung his head.

***

As they approached the house once again Frederick thought it might be preferable just to let Will take care of it all. To end up at Alana’s house interacting with her dog (What was its name? Apple Pie? Applesauce? Something like that. He remembered Will mentioning it and dismissing it with distaste. This was, of course, before the ‘Flapjack’ debacle with Crawford). He had a feeling that, however mortifying the walk had been with Alana, there were some aspects of dog ownership that Hannibal Lecter just would not suffer. 

There was a familiar car in the drive, and a familiar smell in the air: wretched cologne. Frederick had to hold himself back from leaping with delight.

Will stepped out of his car and cut the engine. Waves of that toxic scent billowed over Frederick and he had never been happier to smell it. To his eternal credit, Will managed to look surprised. 

“Hello, Will,” Alana said.

“Alana,” he said.

The air between them was frosty, and it wasn’t just the temperature. 

“I came to see if Hannibal was home.”

“He isn’t. I can tell him you stopped by.”

Will nodded. “I didn’t know he had a dog.”

Alana huffed a cool-sounding laugh. “It’s not his dog. Not mine, either. I found him wandering around in front of the house. We’ve put a notice up on the neighborhood association’s web page, but so far nobody’s come forward to claim him.”

“We?” Will said.

“Don’t start, please.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” said Will, looking legitimately contrite. “I’m sorry.”

Alana sighed, but there was a softening inherent in the sound. She nodded. 

“If you wouldn’t mind telling Hannibal I came by…”

“Of course.”

Will turned to go, then spun again on his heel and looked back at Frederick. “What will you do with the dog if no one claims him?”

When Frederick looked up, he saw Alana biting back a smile, shaking her head. “Looking to add to your collection?”

“Just curious.”

“I’ll probably keep him. Applesauce needs company. As it is, I’ve got a neighbor feeding her. I’ll have to have him neutered, though.”

_Much_ to Frederick’s gratification, Will’s eyes went wide before he was able to contain himself. It was obviously something that hadn’t occurred to him, either. 

“Well, here,” Will said, turning and ducking into the backseat of the car, “I’ve got a little something for him. If it’s all right. It’s nothing much. Something I bought for the dogs. Somehow it never got any further than my car.”

He stood up and held out a stuffed animal. It was a deer or moose or something, because it had antlers, but it was entirely black except for red, beady plastic eyes.

Frederick looked up at Alana. Will’s dogs also didn’t go for toys, having hopping, living, squeaking prey to chase. Perhaps she didn’t know that, because she allowed a smile this time.

Will squatted by his car and held the strange stuffed toy out toward Frederick. “Hey, boy. You want something to chew on?”

In response, Alana unhooked the leash. Frederick made his way forward, careful to sniff at Will as though they hadn’t met. The waves of aftershave were particularly horrific; he almost had to back up. Blinking watering eyes, he smelled the cheap polyester of the toy, then took one of its blunt legs gently between his jaws. The thing flopped toward the ground. It was much heavier than Frederick had expected. He had to bite hard to hold onto it.

“Thanks,” Alana said. “I didn’t really think about it. Can you imagine if he’d gotten hold of one of Hannibal’s shoes?”

Will laughed, and she joined him in laughter. “Your dog here would be out on his furry ass.”

“I’d have to call you to pick him up.”

“I will. If you need me to,” Will told her. 

“Good to know,” said Alana. Then, after a pause: “I better get inside.”

“It’s cold,” Will said. “I’ll see you later, Alana.”

She nodded. “Come on, boy.”

Frederick gave one last look at Will, who nodded at him. All he could do in return was raise his chin so one of the strange toy’s spiky antlers wobbled in Will’s direction, and then the man was gone, getting into his car and pulling away.

Will’s departure had left Frederick strangely bereft. Without choice, though, he trotted after Alana, back into the house of his enemy. He followed her all the way to the kitchen, where she removed the chopped remnants of what was once a veal osso buco, emptied it into one of Hannibal’s crockery bowls, and set it before Frederick. He tucked in at once, barely registering the fact that Alana said, “I need to go see about Applesauce. I’ll be back.”

He looked up only to see her sliding the door of the kitchen closed. 

_Damn._

Locked in Hannibal Lecter’s kitchen for God knows how long. It took only a moment for him to register the possible advantages of the situation. He would certainly be able to hear if anyone entered the house, at least by the front door. His canine heart began to pound when it hit him fully what he was planning, but before he could stop himself he placed the unusually heavy toy on the floor...and turned back into a man.

The tile was cold on Frederick’s hands and feet, and without the heat from the great oven the air itself was a little too chilly for comfort. Gooseflesh cropped up all over his body.

“Damn,” he said, finding he could manage only a whisper due to the disuse of his voice over the past day or so. 

It was probably an idiotic idea, but the first thing he did was pluck Hannibal’s stoneware bowl off the floor and give it a rinse in the sink. He could find no towels and was disinclined to go scouring the dozens of drawers in the room for one, so he put the bowl back into the cabinet wet and hoped it would dry before anyone noticed.

Casting a glance around once again, Frederick picked up the deer-moose thing. There was definitely something solid and heavy at its core. He walked over, wincing at the coolness against his footsoles, and slid a small paring knife out of Hannibal’s knife block. After a moment’s brief inspection, he was glad that no one else had gotten a close look at the toy, which had been clumsily stitched together again after the...whatever...had been placed in its belly.

Frederick cringed on Will’s behalf. In any case it was an earnest effort, but it could have cost them the whole operation.

Bracing the deer-thing on a nearby counter, Frederick snipped each of the haphazard stitches. The wound bloomed with polyester fiberfill. As soon as he had cut through enough that he could slide the object out of the body of the toy, he upended it. A cell phone clattered to the counter.

Frederick’s eyes went wide. He powered it on. The phone had a full battery and was programmed with a single number that had to be Will’s own cell phone. He hastily turned it off to avoid wasting the battery, then gave into momentary panic as to where to hide the damned thing so Hannibal wouldn’t find it. 

_Not the world’s best idea, there, Will._

He was a little miffed, but he was stuck with the phone for the time being, so he snatched it up and began to comb the room for places to hide it. In the end, he found a little niche below one of the industrial-size sinks—a little platform hidden by tangled hoses and pipes. 

Just as he was stuffing the phone inside it, he heard the front door open. It was _way_ too early for Alana to be returning; she would probably still be on the road to her home. 

_Shit_. That meant Hannibal.

Frederick was immediately wracked with the shiver of transformation. Back on four furry feet, he gave the phone one last check in its hiding place and turned. He’d left both the toy and the paring knife out on the counter. The knife he could do nothing about, but he put his forepaws up on the counter’s edge and dragged the stag-thing down onto the floor. 

He was chewing it, trying in a rather un-doglike fashion to keep polyester fibers from sticking between his teeth, when Hannibal opened the door.

Frederick wagged his tail, a puff of stuffing hanging from his lip.

“Oh, Alana,” Hannibal said. He snatched up the destroyed toy. “What is this?” It was summarily plunked into a garbage can. 

Frederick whined. 

Hannibal, unamused, arched an eyebrow. “Lie down,” he said.

With little choice, Frederick obeyed.

Giving hardly a look to Frederick as he lay on the cool tiles, Hannibal went to his walk-in freezer. He had been inside for a full five minutes when Frederick finally decided it was safe to get up and take a look. Tendrils of frost curled past the heavy door and disappeared into the comparatively warmer air of the kitchen. He couldn’t see Hannibal at all. 

What he saw, however, was that at the opposite end of the freezer was another door that lay slightly ajar. An industrial padlock dangled from a hasp on the doorframe. Biting back his trepidation, Frederick padded inside the freezer, moving as silently as he could toward the rear door.

A screeching whine from the other side of that door made him jump back. The sound resolved into the hum of a table saw. When Frederick dared look again, he saw that Hannibal had his back turned and was cutting something. The saw stopped its vibration and Frederick held his breath. 

Calmly, Hannibal Lecter set aside a human hand on the cutting board.

Of course. Of course he wouldn’t keep body parts in any easily accessible portion of his house. Somehow, Frederick and Will would have to draw attention to the hidden room in order to have Hannibal found out. Hopefully by then he won’t have cooked his entire store of meat. At the very least there would be human DNA on the saw and table. 

It all seemed so insurmountable at that moment, though. Frederick sighed.

Hannibal stopped what he was doing and raised a filleting knife. 

Frederick did not see him turn as he had already backed out of the freezer and scurried to lie down on the kitchen floor, his heart hammering. He resisted the urge to check the cell phone in its hiding spot. Not two minutes later, he heard the sound of the padlock clicking home. Frederick intentionally closed his eyes, pretending to sleep, as Hannibal re-emerged from the freezer, shutting it with a puff of cool air behind him. 

Frederick heard a couple of footsteps, then something small impacted the ground by his muzzle, bouncing up to hit his nose. He opened his eyes at last. It was a human finger.

He didn’t have to waste time wondering whether he should bite the bullet, as it were, and gnaw the finger, because the great, hollow doorbell rang.

Hannibal quickly wrapped the severed arm in cheesecloth and placed it in the walk-in fridge. Bending with a lethal grace, he swiped the finger from underneath Frederick’s nose and tossed it in the trash can. Most likely right on top of the destroyed toy.

“Stay,” Hannibal said. It was offhand, but imperative nonetheless. 

Alana would not have rung the doorbell, so Frederick was burning with curiosity as to who might come to Hannibal Lecter’s door in the middle of the afternoon. Still, he did as he was told.

Hannibal’s voice was far away, but Frederick still heard the greeting as if it were pronounced right next to him: “Mason. Please come in.”

At that he couldn’t help but bark—one high and tortured yip. The man who had hurt Margot so badly, had hurt _him_ by proxy, was standing in Hannibal’s entry hall, smug as you please.

“Ah, you have a dog!” Frederick heard a wheedling voice say. “I love dogs. Father used to have a few, for keeping the pigs in line. Puts the fear of God into ‘em.”

“It isn’t my dog,” Hannibal said. “We merely found him and are waiting for his owners to claim him.”

“We?” Mason Verger said. “Ah, yes. This must be kind-hearted Alana, then. I can’t imagine you would be able to stomach a filthy animal in your beautiful space here. At least not of your own accord. You must care for her very much.”

“Alana is very dear to me,” Hannibal said, with that curious flat affect he sometimes used. 

“Come here, boy!” Mason suddenly shouted. There was a percussive sound. He must have been slapping his thigh. 

Frederick allowed curiosity and ire to get the best of him and slunk out from the kitchen. In person, Mason Verger was no great terror. He had fair hair that stuck up in all directions as though he had stepped out of a Wizard of Oz-style whirlwind. His glasses were askew. He wore a great fur-lined coat, in which he nearly disappeared.

“God _damn_ ,” he said upon seeing Frederick. “That’s a big dog.”

Hannibal shot an icy glance in Frederick’s direction. He wouldn’t lie—it almost made his bladder let go. 

As much as he wanted to growl, Frederick didn’t want to incur any more of Hannibal’s wrath. It would be counterproductive in the long run. He inched forward and sniffed Mason’s outstretched hand, then backed away. The man smelled unwashed. Hannibal, with his extremely sensitive nose, had no doubt picked up on it as well. 

“Not a very good guard dog, though,” Mason said. “Looks like a wolf. Maybe fatter than a real wolf.”

_Fatter_? Frederick was extremely put out. 

“Can I make you some tea, Mason?” said Hannibal. 

“Why, that would be peachy keen,” he said.

“Please, have a seat in the sitting room. I’ll be right out.”

“Fine. Will do. C’mere, dog.”

Frederick wasn’t about to follow Mason into the sitting room. Instead, he turned and tailed Hannibal into the kitchen.

“The dog likes you,” Mason shouted after them. 

_The hell I do_ , Frederick thought. It was, however, somewhat disconcerting to find that Mason was now competing with Hannibal for Frederick’s quietly bestowed Biggest Asshole in the Room award.

Hannibal had all the typical pretentious accoutrements for the making of tea, though while the teapot steeped, Frederick watched as Hannibal removed a small vial from a high cabinet and siphoned some of the liquid inside with an eyedropper. This he placed drop by drop into one of the teacups. 

Frederick’s eyes went wide but he made no sound.

Of course, Hannibal filled the cups before carrying the whole tray into the sitting room. With nothing else to do, Frederick followed. 

“Why, thank you,” Mason said when handed the compromised cup. Sedatives? Hallucinogens? Poison? “Smells...exotic.”

“I assure you it is,” Hannibal told him. 

Still, Mason took great slurping gulps of the tea, causing Frederick to inwardly shake his head. That was not to say, of course, that he wasn’t curious about the oncoming effects. 

“I could fit the things my sister has told me about you right in this teacup,” Mason said to Hannibal, dipping his forefinger into the nearly-empty bottom of the cup and sucking the tip noisily.

Frederick winced.

“Doctor-patient confidentiality often goes both ways,” Hannibal said, demurely sipping at his cup. “You decided to come find out for yourself?”

“Nail on the head, Dr. Lecter. Nail on the head. And honestly I was hoping to get some insight into Margot while we’re at it. She can be very selfish, my sister.”

“I’d much rather hear your insight into your sister,” Hannibal said, his tone of voice suggesting that he would rather swallow acupuncture needles than indulge Mason in his nattering.

Frederick was almost starting to feel sorry for Hannibal, and that would not do at all. 

“Whoa,” Mason said. “Did you just see that light?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t.”

“It just...zoomed across like...like headlights from outside.” Mason swept his hand in a great arc, making a _zoom_ noise. “Hehehehe.”

_That would be the drugs, then._

“Are you feeling quite well, Mason?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Yes. Though I don’t think I want to talk about Margot.”

“Would you prefer to talk about yourself?”

“Always,” said Mason, then threw himself back against the back of the chair. “Maybe I’m a little selfish, too.” 

The only way Frederick could describe his laugh was “titter.”

“The best place where one can indulge a little selfishness is in therapy,” said Hannibal.

“Good, good.” His eyes went unfocused and he reached out and tried to grasp something in front of his nose. “Goddamn fairies. They look like little jellyfish, but you shouldn’t let them fool you.”

Hannibal said nothing.

Frederick was dumbstruck.

“I must ask you, Dr. Lecter: how long have you been practicing psychiatry?”

“Does it matter?” Hannibal was definitely playing with him now. 

Mason giggled again. “Nope! You could be a duck trainer for all I care. Now there’s a depressing profession. If it exists. Do you think I’m depressed, Dr. Lecter?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“Do you think my sister is depressed?”

“I really couldn’t divulge those details from our sessions.”

“Sour grapes, Dr. Lecter.”

“Why don’t you ask her yourself?”

“I honestly don’t think she’d tell me anything,” Mason said. “Really, am I that objectionable?”

_Yes_. The thought was emphatic in Frederick’s mind. 

Again, Hannibal didn’t respond.

Of all things, Mason crossed his arms over his chest and _pouted_. “I don’t think I like this therapy thing. It’s making me feel bad.” He watched another invisible whatnot pass over his head.

Hannibal reached into his trouser pocket and removed a small folding knife. He unfolded it in front of Mason, who looked enraptured.

“Shiny,” Mason whispered.

“You’d feel better with a smile,” Hannibal told him, passing over the knife into Mason’s shaking hand. 

“Holy hell, you’re right!” 

Before Frederick was even able to process it, Mason had raised the knife to his face and sliced a great gash in his cheek, just at the corner of his mouth. Blood exploded over his chin and dribbled onto the fur collar of his coat. 

“Now the other one,” Hannibal urged, voice smooth and low. 

“Good, good,” Mason attempted, though it was garbled and made thick by the blood in his mouth.

Against his every wish, Frederick was beginning to salivate. It was far too prurient—a little decadent, even—watching Mason get comeuppance for the violence he’d done to Margot. And the familiar adrenaline-washed sensation that came when he killed the doe with Buster, when he’d killed Randall Tier, was shuddering through his bloodstream.

“That dog knows me,” Mason said, the point of the knife poised at the other corner of his mouth. “He’s looking at me like he knows me.” He paused. “May I spit, please?”

“Into the teacup,” Hannibal said.

Mason nodded and spat a great gout of bloody saliva into the cup.

“Why do you think the dog knows you?” Hannibal asked.

“He’s...I think he’s really a man.”

Without thinking, Frederick leapt at Mason and bit down hard on his cheek. It was Mason who tore himself free, now sporting a loose flap of skin that drooled blood onto his shoulder.

He cracked up laughing. “He likes me, too!” Mason turned to Frederick, taking his muzzle between two bloody hands. “Kisses!” he shouted.

Frederick sunk his teeth into Mason’s nose. 

***

Hannibal had given a lolling, gurgling Mason a shot of morphine and wrapped him in the ruined rug from the sitting room. 

He sat down, picking up his phone from the side table. “Hello, Alana. I wanted to tell you I have quite a bit of work tonight. Perhaps it would be best if we met tomorrow. May I take you to lunch?”

Frederick, who could feel Mason’s blood drying on his muzzle, heard Alana’s voice from the phone’s speaker but could not make out what she was saying.

“Yes,” Hannibal said. Then, “Yes. I’ll take care of him. My regards to Applesauce. Sleep well, Alana.”

Hannibal stood and, leaving his phone, slung a moaning Mason over his shoulder, not without effort. He took one step toward the back door of the house. Then, he half-turned and, to Frederick’s gape-mouthed surprise, patted him twice between the ears.

“Good dog,” Hannibal said.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really sorry it took me so long to update. I promise this one's hellbound for the finish!

“I fucked up,” he told Will. “Badly, I think.” Frederick was crouched in the kitchen close to the sink, whispering into the phone.

“Wait, wait. Slow down. What happened?”

“I bit Mason Verger. I couldn’t help it.”

“You _bit_ him?” 

Frederick winced. Will sounded aghast. “He was here...and...Hannibal drugged him. He was seeing things. He cut up his own face!”

“I’ll bet that amused Hannibal mightily,” Will said. “Jesus. So you just decided to take advantage of the moment? Is that it?”

He winced again. “He killed my—”

“I _know_ , Frederick. But we could be in trouble. Serious trouble.”

Frederick heaved a sigh. “What are we going to do?”

“It’s more like ‘What am _I_ going to do? You’re not really in a position to help right now.”

Frederick heard a creak and froze, ready to drop the phone. He was unable to speak for a few breathless moments.

“Frederick? Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry.”

“I don’t blame you. You’re in the belly of the beast.”

“I’d rather not end up in his belly.”

“You know what I mean,” Will said. “Is Mason still there?”

“No. Hannibal took him somewhere.”

“Did Hannibal come back?”

“Yeah. I assume he’s asleep. If he sleeps.”

“Okay. Listen. We don’t know for certain that Hannibal didn’t end up slitting Mason’s throat.”

“Could you come back from that?”

“How would I know?” Will asked.

Frederick both wished that Will could see the pained expression on his face and at the same time wished he never had to look Will in the eye again. “How will we find out what happened?”

“I have no idea.”

“You could come for a therapy session.”

Will sighed. “I can’t very well ask about Mason.”

“So that’s it?” Frederick asked. “We just have to wait for Mason to turn up somewhere, if he turns up at all?”

“Let me think,” Will told him. “Look, I better get going.”

Casting a hurried glance around the darkened kitchen, Frederick said, “Me too.”

“Hide the phone.”

“I know.”

“Don’t forget to turn it off.”

“I _know_.”

“Sorry,” said Will. “What I mean is ‘be careful.’ We’re up to our necks in it now whether we like it or not.”

Frederick sighed. “You be careful too.”

But Will had already ended the call.

***

It was getting brain-meltingly uncomfortable by the time Hannibal came downstairs. Frederick thought if he danced or paced he might lose control right on Hannibal’s floor so he just whined.

“Hm,” Hannibal said. But instead of going to the refrigerator or preparing his coffee, he retrieved the leash and collar from its hook and went to it around Frederick’s neck. 

_Oh, thank god._

Hannibal hauled up hard on the lead as soon as the collar was buckled. Just as Frederick had expected, he would take no disobedience from a dog. His eyes narrowed in resentment, but he was too relieved to have the front lawn in sight to be indignant about it for long. 

The jostle of his own steps increased the urgency, but Frederick was bound and determined not to crack in any way in front of Hannibal, much less slip up in such a messy and unavoidably visible fashion. 

To his surprise, though, at the open front door Hannibal clicked open the spring-loaded clip and let Frederick off the leash. Perhaps his delicate nose couldn’t take the routine stenches pet ownership brings with it, but Frederick was far too relieved to care. Literally relieved.

As he finished up his business, the frost-tipped grass scratching over his unprotected doggy balls, he caught movement in the periphery and snapped to. The growl was bubbling in his throat before he thought better of it. 

A tuft-eared gray squirrel, lean from the winter, was picking its painful way over the frozen blades of grass, its tiny paw-fingers fluttering like a pianist’s on a difficult run. It did not appear to hear or see Frederick, or if it did, it was far too hungry at this point to care.

Frederick lowered his head, elongating his neck.

Hannibal, still at the door, cleared his throat with a sound like snapping ice.

Frederick immediately stopped growling and turned, though reluctantly, away from the squirrel.

“Heel,” Hannibal said, a stern finger pointing down at the tile beside his feet. Even a split second’s hesitation would be treasonous, so Frederick crunched through the lawn, trying as best he could to retrace the steps he’d taken.

What little of the squirrel’s smell he’d caught had been enticing almost beyond reason. Its little vibrating heart, the stench of animal desperation. The first dry, dusty notes of malnutrition. It was ripe for the taking, and it had been too long since Frederick had held living meat in his teeth.

Nonetheless, he stood—every muscle still clenched and jumping—at Hannibal’s side as the warmth from the interior poured out over them. It smelled like coffee, and was not nearly as tantalizing, not to his dog’s senses, as the wild scent of the little squirrel had been.

“Sit,” Hannibal said. 

Frederick plopped his hindquarters onto the tile. He fully expected Hannibal to re-attach the leash, to close the door. Instead, he squatted beside Frederick and let the leash drop to the entryway floor.

The squirrel was making its halting way across the lawn, still made too oblivious by hunger to take note of any threat. 

Frederick almost flinched when he felt Hannibal’s breath tickle the sensitive hairs around his ear.

“ _Kill_ ,” he ordered. It was soft and completely imperative.

Frederick found he needed no time to be surprised by it. The leap he made off the front stoop covered nearly half the distance to the squirrel. It froze, eyes liquid and terrified. Too starved and slow to make its escape, the squirrel crunched between Frederick’s jaws. He felt blood slide down his throat, through the fur on his muzzle. As tempted as he was to look back toward Hannibal, he gave his already-limp prize a shake instead.

“Leave it,” came the command from the stoop.

At this, Frederick hesitated a moment. A navy blue Jaguar slid down the street, its exhaust a puff of breath in the freezing air. 

“Leave it,” Hannibal said again.

Frederick let the bloody rag of a thing drop. The driver of the Jaguar looked over, her eyes wide in the middle of a cloud of permed hair.

Hannibal snapped his fingers and Frederick turned, licking rapidly cooling blood from his lips. He trotted over and stood at the bottom step, looking up at Hannibal.

_Imagining it was his blood that he tasted instead._

“Good dog,” Hannibal told him, and Frederick fielded a strong wave of annoyance at how good the praise made him feel.

_No, no, no. Don’t forget He’s the enemy._

It was impossible to focus entirely on his wrath toward Hannibal when Mason Verger’s fate still went undetermined. Or at least unknown. The sudden and acute frustration sent a shudder down Frederick’s spine, and drops of bloody saliva scattered from his mouth onto the concrete of the walk. One landed on Hannibal’s house slipper.

Were he human, his eyes would have widened, but Frederick kept himself well schooled in hound form. Hannibal, in response, merely inclined his head, the barest hint of a smile on his lips.

Frederick followed into the warm house. He suffered through the hot, wet towel over his muzzle. It came away mottled red. There was no suffering involved afterward when he was presented with a plate of Cornish hen, cooked to moist perfection.

His fangs crunched through the remaining fragile bones just as they had the bones of the undernourished squirrel, except this time he had full permission to lick the plate clean, to worry with his tongue at shards of bird skeleton in his tough, black gums. 

Frederick looked up at Hannibal, trying, _trying_ not to soften.

“I think I’ll call you Achilles,” Hannibal said.

***

He wasn’t allowed on the bed unless Alana was there by herself, but Hannibal had delivered to the house a down-filled dog bed for the living room, so Frederick could sleep beside the embers of that evening’s fire. It was too bad, Frederick thought, that he hadn’t gone to a pet supply store. The thought of Hannibal Lecter in his three-thousand-dollar suits lugging a doggy bed down aisles crowded with children holding plastic bags full of fish and rednecks lugging sacks of Purina was far too good.

For herself, Alana kept her triumph quiet, choosing instead to lavish attention on the new “pet.” Hannibal was reserved with affection, as Frederick might have expected, but not with verbal praise, and _certainly_ not with top-quality chow. Any more of this and Frederick was going to get chubby again.

Of course, as he knew, it wasn’t to last, even though a very small and secret part of him might have wanted it to. Frederick had caught snippets of conversation about neutering, though, and it made his blood run cold each time. It seemed as though, for now, neither Hannibal nor Alana could be bothered to put him in a car and seal the deal.

Plus, he was very well-behaved. Frederick Chilton was no canine skirt-chaser. The only female—the only _woman_ —he wanted in any capacity had been out of his life for weeks. 

That was, until she walked back in.

Alana was gone but Hannibal was home, dressed smartly though to all appearances not prepared to go anywhere.

Frederick wasn’t accustomed to running for the door as soon as the bell rang, but for some reason today he did, and was so shocked to find Margot at the threshold that he almost switched back into human form. 

“Thank you for seeing me,” she told Hannibal as he ushered her inside. 

Frederick fought with all of his strength the urge to dance at her heels. She looked pale and had lost some weight, but to him she was all beauty even so. 

“Of course,” Hannibal said. “Would you care for some tea?”

“When did you get a dog?” she asked, confusion a flicker on her fair face. Tentative, Margot placed her hand between Frederick’s ears and scratched with her fingertips. 

“He happened upon us. Margot,” Hannibal said, “meet Achilles.”

At this Margot knelt. Frederick could smell her perfume—something newer and sharper this time, as though the scent she’d worn before belonged to a past, inviolate life—and felt her breath on his nose. 

“Achilles,” she said. 

There was the tiniest spark of recognition in her eyes, but it faded as she turned to answer Hannibal’s inquiry. “Tea would be lovely, thanks,” she said.

Frederick, bereft, lowered his head again as she stood and turned away.

“I must say this was unexpected,” Hannibal told Margot before he stepped into the kitchen.

“A lot of unexpected things have been happening lately,” she said.

“I’ll be back shortly,” he told her.

Margot took a seat in what Frederick assumed was her accustomed spot, either not knowing or not caring that the chairs and rug—once spattered with Mason’s blood after his self- (and assisted) mutilation—had been replaced.

Achilles-Frederick sat by her side, a sentinel, his tail swishing metronomically. He ached for her touch, but she sat with her hands in her lap. Demure by appearance but preoccupied in truth.

It wasn’t long before Hannibal returned with a full silver tea service. Of course. As evidenced by his doting on Alana, he wasn’t above pulling out the stops for a beautiful woman. 

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other,” Hannibal said, pouring the steaming tea into a cup of exquisite thinness. “I was beginning to think you believed your therapy complete.”

“I doubt that will ever be the case,” Margot told him. 

Frederick bit back a whine. And yet she said it matter-of-factly, as she did most things. Margot was no brittle teacup. Still, he could tell that something not only bothered but haunted her. She took silver tongs in remarkably steady fingers and dropped a lump of dark brown cane sugar into her tea.

“Tell me,” said Hannibal, neglecting to pour himself a cup. “Is it your brother again?”

Frederick did not fail to notice the slight curl at the corners of Hannibal’s mouth. That was nothing if not triumph.

_Maybe he_ has _killed Mason Verger. Made him irretrievable even by...whatever it was that had infected Frederick._

“Mason was missing for two days.”

_Was. Oh, damn._

A barely perceptible widening of the eyes on Hannibal’s part. This was clearly not what he expected. “And he returned?”

“Yes.” There was complex emotion spring-loaded behind that word.

“How did he look?” Hannibal asked, still pretending pleasant, detached, head-shrinker conversation. 

“Dirty. He was missing his coat and his shirt was covered in blood. And his face--”

“His face?” Hannibal prompted.

“Wild. Manic. More so than usual. His eyes weren’t dull and unfocused like they usually are, but so bright they almost glowed. He was looking not at me but through me.”

“This doesn’t seem much different from his usual behavior, if you’ll pardon my saying so.”

“He…” Margot stumbled, taking a sip of tea to cover her hesitation. “He hugged me. He stank of old blood but also something else. Even after he showered I could still smell it on him, underneath the cologne.”

“Your brother goes away, comes back, quite literally, a changed man. Do you think it is for the better?” asked Hannibal.

“With Mason, nothing is for the better,” said Margot. Frederick noticed her hands had begun to shake.

“Is it possible that he made a breakthrough here in therapy? We had quite the productive session a few days ago.” It was a smooth lie.

“Unless therapy causes a man to eat like a bear, I don’t think so.”

“Hm,” Hannibal said.

“He had Pavlov slaughtered.”

“Pavlov?”

“His ‘pet’ pig. As much as Mason could ever have had a pet. And he ate him.”

“Once again,” said Hannibal, “not out of character. Not entirely.”

Margot shivered. “ _Raw_.”

Frederick lay down on the floor, a heap of abject misery. It was true, then. His own bites were causing Mason to turn. And turn he would. The first time he wolfed out there would be slaughter in his path. And if that path crossed Margot’s… He barely heard the remainder of the conversation, the blood thumping through his head and in his ears.

The cell phone. He _had_ to call Will.

***

He didn’t get the chance immediately, though. 

In the meantime he was treated to the sight of what was as close to a fit of paranoia as Hannibal Lecter probably came. Frederick watched him painstakingly remove from the cabinet the teacups he had used during his last session with Mason. They had been cleaned, of course, though by hand, and thus might still contain residue.

Hannibal brushed the crevices where the bell of the teacups met the base with a clinical swab, shaking his head all the while.

Of course, to him it would be the only explanation. It had to be that somehow he had dosed himself with the powerful hallucinogen he’d also given Mason. In reality there had been no mutilation. Hannibal, in a drug-induced haze, had ruined a perfectly good chair and burned his seven thousand dollar kilim rug in the wilds of Carroll County because of imaginary bloodstains.

He kept clear of Alana for a couple of days, brooding in his study over what would seem to be a mistake of paramount stupidity. 

As much as he could, Frederick enjoyed the spectacle. At the same time, he had to worry about how much Mason remembered and what he would do because of it.

Before Hannibal appeared to have settled the matter in his mind, Alana showed up to surprise him in a getup Frederick wished he hadn’t seen. No, it wasn’t that the satin bustier, thong panties, garters, and stockings that she wore underneath her heavy winter trench coat were objectionable. Far from it. But when she dropped the coat in Hannibal’s front entry hall, prompting the good doctor to abandon his wine glass on the side table and escort her upstairs, he looked away.

It just felt like “cheating” on Margot.

While the lacing of Alana’s corset had looked complex, Hannibal had pretty deft fingers, Frederick surmised, so he didn’t have all the time in the world to saunter to the kitchen and pry the cell phone out of its hiding spot. When his paws hit the tiles, he changed back, wincing at the cold under his bare feet.

It seemed like the phone took forever to boot up from dormancy. Frederick let out a breath when he finally heard it begin to ring.

_Please pick up._

“Frederick.”

“Of course it is. Listen, I don’t have a lot of time.”

“Okay,” Will said. “Go ahead.”

“Remember that thing I told you about last time?”

“You told me a lot of stuff last time.”

“The important thing,” Frederick hissed.

“You’re beating around the bush an awful lot for someone who’s short on time,” said Will. There was a certain satisfaction in his voice. Maybe even… _teasing_? In any case, it was something Frederick was sure would be gone in the next few seconds.

“Mason,” Frederick said. “Mason is...changing.”

He heard Will sigh. 

“I’m sorry,” Frederick said, letting a note of contrite misery creep into his voice. “Again.”

“Well, no one could have known.” 

Frederick expected a harsher berating from Will, yet it didn’t seem at all forthcoming. “What are we going to do?”

“I’ve been thinking about this. You know, if it happened.”

“Well, it’s happened.”

There was a hint of a smile in Will’s voice. “Luckily, I have a plan.”

Frederick was too knotted up to breathe out the relief that was trickling in, but he let his shoulders drop just a little, shifting his weight. “Really?”

“Like I said, leave it to me. You just keep being the adoring house pet.”

“This sounds like the oddest thing in the world to say, but Hannibal’s taken to me quite a bit. He calls me ‘Achilles.’”

Will’s laugh was so loud in the speaker that Frederick had to jerk the phone away from his ear. “Yes, that’s Hannibal.”

A creak sounded as the house settled in the twilight cold, vibrating through the tiled room and nearly causing Frederick to drop the phone. “I have to go,” he said. “Whatever you’re doing with Mason, do it quick. Before they…”

“Before they…?”

Frederick sighed. “You know. ‘Snip, snip.’”

Another laugh, percussive in Frederick’s ear. “Luckily, it’s very close to time that we finish this. I’ll see you soon, Frederick.”

“Wait— _see_ me?”

But Will had already hung up. There was an inescapable finality when Frederick switched the phone off; this was the endgame, apparently. Frederick felt out-of-the-loop. Down to trusting Will’s new, mysterious plan involving Mason Verger and hoping in the meantime no one decided to cut his nuts off.

Voices echoed down the hall. Alana and Hannibal, no doubt, cruising for a post-coital snack. 

Frederick stuffed the phone onto its little platform under the sink. He nudged it into place with a paw rather than a hand. Laying down so quickly the breath huffed out of his lungs, he moved only his gaze toward the door through which Alana and Hannibal had come.

Both were barefoot. Alana wore Hannibal’s too-large bathrobe. Hannibal wore a sweater and his silk briefs.

_That’s really something I never wanted to see_

“Achilles,” Alana said, crouching down. “C’mere.”

Frederick tried not to look up into Hannibal’s barely-clad crotch as he padded over to Alana, letting her run her fingers through the thick fur of his ruff.

“Coffee?” asked Hannibal.

“Decaf if you have it.”

“Decaf is a travesty.”

Alana laughed, scratching Frederick behind the ears. “Tea, then.” She stood and looked down. “Want something to eat, boy?”

***

The following day, just after Alana had gone, Frederick thought he heard the growl of her little Audi TT coming back up the driveway. But he heard the sound of the transmission whining and knew it wasn’t nearly as powerful a car that was headed toward the house.

_Will?_ he thought. Then sheer panic set in, shivering his skin until he felt he would change there and then. _Was this the end? Was he ready?_

“Will Graham,” Hannibal said. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“I waited until Alana left,” said Will, stomping the snow from his boots.

“Most likely for the best,” Hannibal told him. “Please, let me take your coat.”

Swallowing down his nervousness, Frederick decided he should present himself. Not that he expected Hannibal would call for him, but he had to keep up his doglike behavior. Buster had been an excellent teacher. He fielded a small pang of homesickness thinking about the stout little mutt.

“Hannibal?” Will said when Frederick trotted out. “Am I rubbing off on you?”

Will, of course, reeked of his cheap aftershave.

“That depends. Am I rubbing off on _you_?” 

“I think that remains to be seen.”

“It remains to be proven,” Hannibal chided.

Frederick laughed inwardly. Before...all of this, he had hated what he’d heard of Will and Hannibal’s cryptic banter. Rather, he’d hated the _ease_ of it, when he couldn’t eke out so much as a disparagement from Will when he was under his care at the BSHCI. 

Will spoke this way with no one but Hannibal, and Frederick saw it now as the carefully curated flirtation that it was—Hannibal as ultimate tempter and Will giving a somewhat less-than-valiant resistance. 

Frederick nudged Will’s hand with his nose. 

Without looking down, Will scratched Frederick’s head. 

Hannibal inclined his chin. “It seems Achilles knows you. Have you met?”

At that, Frederick’s heart leapt.

“Once,” said Will. “When I stopped by last. Alana was here, but you weren’t.”

“Ah, yes. Now I remember. She told me afterward. I was disappointed that I had missed you.”

“Well,” Will said, “here I am.”

“Here you are,” said Hannibal. “Cognac?”

“Please.”

Frederick trailed both of them to the sitting room, where Hannibal decanted thick, amber-colored liquid into two cut crystal glasses. His smile was positively oily as he handed one over to Will.

Will took the glass and nodded his approval, though he did not drink from it. “I understand you’re seeing Mason Verger in your capacity as a therapist now.”

A thin line, almost unnoticeable to an observer who wasn’t Will or Frederick, appeared between Hannibal’s brows. “I suppose Margot told you.”

“Yes, she came to my house.”

“Again?”

Will looked slightly taken aback, though Frederick couldn’t tell if this was put on for effect. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Will. I had to presume, of course, that she knew your connection to me and—quite astutely—asked for your perception of my techniques.”

“Nail on head, Hannibal.”

“I won’t be so crude as to ask what you told her. What is said in your house is just as sacrosanct as that which is said in my office.”

“I don’t mind telling you,” Will said. “She’s not so much worried about you as worried about her brother. Or, more precisely, about his _effect_ on her.” 

Hannibal took a careful sip of the cognac and balanced the glass on his palm, the short stem between his first and second finger. “More so of late.”

“No doubt, considering what he did to her.”

It was Hannibal’s turn to be surprised, though, of course, he covered it well. “Oh?”

“He made her undergo a forced abortion,” Will said.

Frederick tried not to flinch. The slight note of triumph in Will’s tone, for knowing something that Hannibal did not, eased the sting a little. But only a little.

“She can’t, of course, be expected to divulge everything, so I hadn’t known she was expecting.”

Will set his cognac, untouched, down on the side table. “It was mine,” he said.

Frederick nearly lost control of his legs. He covered it with an abrupt crash of his hindquarters to the rug. 

Hannibal nodded, determined to remain unfazed. “I had thought she preferred women to men.”

Will nodded. “She does. What she wanted was an heir to the Verger fortune. Someone to pass over Mason in terms of precedence.”

“She used you.”

Cocking an eyebrow, Will said, “I allowed myself to be used.”

On the floor, sitting between Will and Hannibal, Frederick tried to keep from shifting from paw to paw. To release some of the tension he let his mouth drop open, tongue lolling in a heavy pant.

Will nudged him with the toe of his boot. “Is it warm in here to you?” he asked Hannibal.

Hannibal nodded and turned away, presumably to check a thermostat in the hall. 

“Keep it together,” Will hissed in Frederick’s ear.

Hannibal returned to the sitting room. “Tell me, Will, does it make you angry?”

“Of course.”

“Even though she took something from you against your will.”

“She would have given something to me.”

Frederick could not help but whine.

“Achilles,” Hannibal said. “Lie down.”

That, at least, was a relief.

“What do you propose to do about it?” Hannibal continued.

“Invite Mason for dinner.”

The barest hint of a smile tugged at the corners of Hannibal’s sharp mouth. “I _am_ rubbing off on you, I believe.”

“As you said,” Will told him, “it remains to be proven.”


	18. Chapter 18

“I don’t know what you did, but I feel like a new man. I feel… _reborn_.”

Hannibal gave a slight nod. 

Frederick marveled that Mason Verger’s round face was ruddy and baby-like in its smoothness. No seams or scars that would give away the fact that only a few days ago his cheeks were gouged out, his near-severed lips were dangling over his chin. He was the picture of health.

Well, _physically_.

Frederick felt that the very atmosphere had changed when Mason walked in Hannibal’s door. The air acquired a sweet-sour tang. Whether Hannibal picked it up with his sensitive nose was unclear from his schooled expression, but the reek hung heavy in Frederick’s canine nostrils, making him shake his head and snort repeatedly. 

“I’m glad, Mason,” Hannibal said. “However, we should be cautious about assuming that your need for therapy has come to an end.”

Had Will not offered to take Mason out of the picture, Frederick figured Hannibal would have aimed to do so again.

“To be honest, Doc, I don’t think I needed therapy in the first place,” said Mason. “This was Margot’s bag. I have to watch her carefully, as you know. She gets these wild ideas in her head.”

“Such as…?”

Mason rolled his eyes. “Get this: she took it upon herself to get _impregnated_ in a grand game of one-upsmanship. She gets an heir, I lose the Verger fortune. Ridiculous.”

“So the inheritance will be transferred to the child when it is born,” Hannibal said.

“Most unfortunately, she lost it. The kid. Poor, dear sister.”

Frederick whined.

“Did she inform the father?” Hannibal asked.

“Hah,” Mason said, scratching the unblemished skin of his chin. “Margot doesn’t go for men. I’m sure she would have told you that. I assumed it was…” he trailed off, the puzzled expression on his face caricaturish.

“Artificial insemination?” Hannibal prompted.

“I’ll have to check my records. I’ve had a GPS tracking device on her car since she bought it. One must when his little lamb strays so far off the path, yes?” 

Hannibal didn’t answer, though Frederick saw a minute change in the force with which he tapped his forefinger against the arm of the chair. 

“I guess I’ve been falling down on the job,” Mason said, now musing entirely to himself, “I mean, I anticipated an eventual screwing-over by my only living relative, but I didn’t expect it to be so _literal_.” 

Frederick scratched at the floor.

“Is your dog sick?” Mason asked. “I’m not gonna lie. He’s kind of annoying me.”

“Achilles,” Hannibal said by way of an answer, “go into the living room.”

His stomach suddenly leaping into his throat, Frederick chose for the first time to defy an order of Hannibal’s, laying on the floor and putting his head between his paws instead. He could feel the hammering of his heart against the parquet.

Mason chortled. He was, in fact, the very first person Frederick had ever heard whose laugh could be categorized as a ‘chortle.’ “Not very well trained, is he? I somehow expected better of you, Doc.”

“Achilles is very loyal to me.”

_Wait and see, buddy. Wait and see._

“I had a wild dream about that dog,” Mason said. “Can’t remember most of it… What do you think that means?”

“Alas, Mason, I am no Freudian. I focus on evidence-based methods of treatment.”

“Methods of treatment,” Mason repeated. He seemed for a moment utterly unaware of his surroundings, lost inside whatever ringing Bedlam served as his mind. “Well,” he said, snapping back to attention, “whatever you’ve done, it works. I think Margot should continue her treatment. It’ll be good for her. I have the utmost confidence in your skill, Dr. Lecter.”

“Do tell her I look forward to seeing her again, then. She’ll need support from both of us.”

“I have always been here and will always be here,” Mason said.

For good reason, Frederick assumed by that he didn’t mean giving Margot a shoulder to cry on. If he tore Mason’s throat out, gnawed it down to the spine, he wouldn’t be able to come back. Case in point: one Randall Tier. He had, of course, also been incinerated long before he could even think of bouncing back from the dead. Mutilation was one thing, but death, he supposed, was death. It heartened him immeasurably.

But Mason had risen from his chair; the chance had gone.

It was up to Will to take care of it now, if he could bring himself to. 

It seemed that choice was what Hannibal expected. After having ushered Mason out into the steel-hued daylight, he called Will. Absently scratching Frederick on the head, he said into the phone, “I don’t think you’ll need to extend an invitation to Mason Verger. I believe, given a little time, he’ll come to you.”

***

Frederick had nothing to do but pray in the intervening time between the phone call and what was hopefully Mason’s end that Alana wouldn’t talk Hannibal into having him neutered. Not that the situation wasn’t adequately rife with anticipation anyway…

Hannibal, for his part, brushed off the suggestion of possibly taking away his prized pet’s ferocity in such a way. The squirrel had sealed the deal. He wanted Frederick on point and ready to be commanded. Frederick would bristle at the command, of course, but not the ensuing atrocity. Tier, hunting the doe with Buster; he had killed, yes. Something he never thought himself capable of when he was framed for twelve gruesome murders.

The real Chesapeake Ripper took him for walks, scooped his leavings up with a plastic bag. It was almost justice in itself.

Frederick wasn’t content, of course, to stay in this canine form forever. Though when he gave a thought to returning to his spare, clean house (though it wasn’t clean anymore, was it?), his job, it was only an abstraction, and one that left a sour taste in his mouth on top of it.

Hannibal had been avoiding Alana to the extent that he could. Frederick knew it was in anticipation of fulfillment as Will at last gave over to the sway of his influence. It seemed perverse to think that this long game of vengeance had turned both Frederick and (hopefully) Will into killers.

Frederick hoped that Will could murder as wolves do: in the interest of survival.

***

Will showed up at Hannibal’s door unannounced but not unexpected. He brought a packet wrapped in butcher paper. It made Frederick’s eyes widen just as much as it made his mouth water. 

Whether he would get to taste that particular morsel of revenge remained to be seen, though. He and Will had a task. At the same time that it was satisfying to be, it seemed, at the end of things, Frederick was also a little conflicted. It had been so long and the situation was so far removed from its desperate beginnings that the snow-clotted day he happened upon the wolf—and Will’s unexpected kindness may as well have been a dream.

He made a show of sniffing at the package that Will had brought. Most of what he smelled was Will’s aftershave, but the meat held traces of the sweet-sour smell that had emanated from Mason the last time he was here. He furrowed his doggy brows and backed away before Hannibal told him to stay down. Even though he had not hesitated to rip out Randall Tier’s throat, it was nonetheless disturbing—this thought of Will coldly slicing Mason Verger up.

Frederick followed the two of them into the kitchen. 

With a resounding slap, Will deposited the parcel onto the heavy butcher’s block in the center of the kitchen. “I thought I’d bring dinner.”

Hannibal cocked an eyebrow. “Pork?”

“He was a pig, yes.”

The barest hint of a smile. “I have the perfect recipe. Call it a specialité de la maison.”

If the wretched pun registered with Will he didn’t show it. Frederick was practically gagging.

“Would you like me to slice it?” Will asked.

“You’ve brought me quite a bit, Will. You’ve outdone yourself.” This time Hannibal could not stop the smile from creeping—and yes, it crept—over his face. “I’ll take half for tonight and store the rest for a later date.”

Will nodded, then looked at Frederick past Hannibal’s shoulder.

Frederick tried to keep his eyes from going wide.

With a razor-edged _santoku_ from his broad knife block, Hannibal cut through the meat as though it were sushi tuna, just a quiet _shush_ of the blade and it fell into two equal portions. 

The meat smelled more of blood now though Will had likely drained it (Frederick didn’t necessarily want to imagine that procedure).

Hannibal inhaled deeply and smiled again. Slipping the knife into one of the pockets of his apron, he walked over to the enormous freezer and unlocked it.

Another look from Will to Frederick.

_This was it. This was it_. The same cocktail of neurochemicals that had driven Frederick stumbling down snowbanks outside Will’s house rose and circulated within him now. Fight. Flight. _Both_.

“Will, Will, Will,” Hannibal said. “I was prepared to believe in you.” 

The fur of Frederick’s ruff prickled. Hannibal must have smelled deceit. 

“What do you mean?” Will asked.

Hannibal turned away from the meat locker. “I had such hopes for us.”

“We can still fulfill those hopes,” said Will.

“I don’t think so.” He flung open the door and, it seemed, rode the blast of cool air toward Will, the _santoku_ once again in his hand. 

Will dodged one swipe of the knife, then snagged a wooden cutting board from the butcher block and held it in front of his face as Hannibal brought the knife down again. He let it go, knocking Hannibal slightly off balance and leaving him to pry the blade from the wood. 

However, Hannibal left the block on the floor and whipped a chef’s knife from the magnetic strip by the door of the freezer. He began to advance.

Will looked around him, but all the knives were behind Hannibal. “Frederick!” he called.

That made Hannibal falter, but only a little. It was enough time for Frederick to leap up and sink his teeth into Hannibal’s knife arm. 

The pain made him drop the weapon, and it went clattering to the floor.

With Frederick growling, slavering, and firmly latched onto the arm (tasting for the first time Hannibal Lecter’s blood), Will grabbed a heavy copper skillet from the rack above the butcher block and swung it at Hannibal’s head. 

Hannibal ducked just below the pan’s arc, and at the same time delivered a kick with the opposite foot to Frederick’s breastbone.

The air knocked out of him momentarily, Frederick let his mouth go slack and gasped. He didn’t see the next kick coming, but Hannibal’s boot contacted his ribcage and sent him sprawling across the kitchen floor. He yelped despite himself.

“Training a dog to wait for the right command from the correct person,” Hannibal spat toward Will, his breathing heavy. “I underestimated the extent of your deception, Will.”

“Underestimate _this_ ,” Will said, and took another two-handed swing with the pan. 

Again, Hannibal ducked, but this time he wrenched the knife out of the cutting board and lunged forward on hands and knees, slicing at Will’s legs.

The knife simply swished through the fabric of Will’s pants as it had through the piece of...whatever was on the table. 

Thinking he was cut, Will cried out and stumbled, the pan hitting the floor and he falling on his ass shortly behind it.

Though he was in agony and could feel the ribs that had cracked, Frederick got up and bit the back of Hannibal’s shirt, tugging him away from Will.

The shirt tore in his teeth, though, giving Hannibal momentum to bring the knife down in its final, deadly arc. 

Everything from that point seemed to happen in slow motion.

From between Hannibal’s legs, Frederick watched Will _shimmer_ , his outline becoming hazy. From the miasma, the fur leapt out more readily than anything else, but the teeth and claws were not far behind.

Wolf-Will leapt upward and clamped his jaws around Hannibal’s throat, sending blood jetting in an hourglass spray over the sinks and butcher block.

This time, there was ripping.

When Hannibal fell backward, knocking his head hard against the tile, there was a gaping, bloody cavern where the column of his throat used to be. Frederick could swear he could see the white of bones gleaming through the blood.

Hannibal’s eyes were open and would remain so even after the last of the oxygen was pushed up out of his spent lungs and went sputtering on a bloody mist into the open air.

There was still pain, and suddenly cold on top of it. Frederick had slipped back into human form. There was an odd weight on his neck. _The collar._ “Will?” he managed.

The great gray wolf looked up. His growl shuddered across the kitchen, amplified by the despoiled tile. Blood quavered and fell from his trembling muzzle.

“Will!” Frederick said again, bringing his hand up to shield his face.

Instead of leaping, wolf-Will faltered and shook his shaggy head as if trying to rid himself of a disturbing image. He coughed once, twice, sending the dripping hunk of meat that once was the mechanism by which Hannibal believed he had controlled Frederick to the floor with a wet, rubbery sound.

When Frederick lowered his hand, a naked and red-spattered and very human Will knelt next to Hannibal’s corpse, his clothes behind him in a pile.

“It was you?” he asked, but the tone was mild, wondering, not accusatory.

“We don’t have time for this,” Will said, the words burbling through a mouthful of cooling blood.

“I—” Frederick began.

Will stood, his human legs remarkably steady. “You have to leave.”

Frederick also scrambled to his feet. “What if he’s—”

“He’s gone,” Will said. “There are some things you can’t come back from. But _you_ have to go now.”

“Me? What about you?” Finally realizing fully that he was naked, Frederick cupped his hands over his groin.

“I have to be the one to call the cops. Came over for dinner, saw this mess.”

“And I...I have to leave. Yeah. Okay. Or they’ll—”

“They’ll put you down,” Will said. “Take the phone. Get as far away as you can. When they let me go, I’ll call it and pick you up.”

“But you’re a mess,” Frederick said.

“I’ll clean up in the sink.”

“What if they don’t let you go?”

“They will. But if you don’t hear from me, try to make your way back to the house. I left the door unlocked.”

Whereas Frederick in his fully human days might have balked at walking even a mile—especially on his cane—now he only nodded, a spark of uncomplicated joy jumping in his chest at the possibility of seeing the dogs again. “I’ll clean up, then—”

“No,” Will told him. Leave a trail of blood on the way out the front door.”

“Yes. Okay. Uh-huh. That makes sense.” He wasn’t sure why, but the time had come to leave the grand planning to Will. At the same time, he desperately wanted to ask about Mason, his fate. If, indeed, he’d had one.

“I know you have questions,” Will said, preempting. “We’ll talk about it later. I promise.”

Frederick only nodded and retrieved the phone from its hiding spot. “Are you going to be okay?”

“When it comes to Hannibal, it’s impossible to say for sure.”

The fact of it hit Frederick like a thunderbolt. This was his second rescue at Will’s hands. Third, he supposed, if you counted the initial bite. The one that both trapped him and freed him. He nodded, tucked the phone between his neck and the collar, and surrendered to the shiver of transformation.

_Trail of blood._

Trying not to look at Hannibal, or imagine the now-deceased man staring at him, he dipped his paws into the pool of blood, which already had a thin skin over it in the cool air. He barked once.

Will nodded. “I’ll let you out. Just a second.” He had climbed into the utility sink to at least rinse his feet. When he got out, he tossed the soggy dishcloth with which he’d dried his feet into the blood. The impact sent a ripple that banked against the corpse’s cheek. 

Will seemed utterly unashamed of his nakedness as he went upstairs. Frederick followed, smeary red pawprints in his wake.

“Go,” Will said, and opened the front door.

As he had with Hannibal’s commands—the commands of the dead man that now lay going stiff in his kitchen—Frederick didn’t hesitate. 

His paws scrabbled on the wood floor until he got his purchase, then he barreled out the front door of the reeking charnel-house and into the night.

***

_House of Horrors in Dog Attack Victim’s Home._

_Body Parts, Human Meat Found in Freezer._

_Local Doctor had Macabre Secret!_

_DNA Tests Reveal Chesapeake Ripper Victims._

_Ripper Suspect Frederick Chilton Cleared?_

It wasn’t exactly with relish but with a sense of calm absolution that Frederick read over the headlines. In order to spare Will a possible prison term for harboring a fugitive, he had turned himself in the day after Will returned to the house. They kept Frederick in custody for a little over forty-eight hours. Combined with the head wound he had sustained during the frame-up and the DNA identification of body parts from the agents who had died in his living room and kitchen found in Hannibal’s freezer, there was no reason to keep him. 

Frederick returned, a free man, not to his own still-sullied home, but to Will’s place.

He was immediately on guard when he first walked in. Over the animal smell of the dogs lay the same sweet-sour tang he’d scented on Mason. Prepared to transform or run, he backed up to the door just as Will walked out of his bedroom. 

“Did Mason come here?” he asked.

Will grinned. “Definitely not. I’m just not wearing my accustomed scent.”

Frederick’s jaw dropped. “You used it to cover…?”

“I don’t know what Hannibal would have smelled if I didn’t use it, and I didn’t want to give myself away to you. Not yet.”

“Why?”

“I’ve made my journey. Well, part of it. You had yet to make yours.”

Frederick shook his head. “Huh. Do I smell like it?”

“Of course. Not that the typical human nose can detect it. Hannibal was… _exceptional_.”

Frederick fought to keep his mouth from dropping open again. There was mourning in Will’s words, in his tone. Fondness. “He was still your friend?”

“In a way, yes. I loved him as much as I hated him.”

“But you chose _me_.” 

“It wasn’t an easy choice,” Will said. “But it was the only way to put the Ripper to rest. Hannibal wouldn’t have stopped. He couldn’t have.”

“And Mason?” Frederick asked. 

“Traveling through the bellies of his pigs about now, I’d guess.”

“You _did_ kill him.”

“Margot was only too glad to help,” said Will. 

Frederick smiled at the mention of her name. “I’d love to see her again,” he said.

“I know.” Will averted his gaze. “Why didn’t you go home, Frederick? You’re a free man.”

“I did—I don’t know.”

Will only smiled and nodded, then turned back toward his kitchen. “Care to stay for dinner? Burgers?”

Frederick grinned. “Burgers would be great.”

He ended up not only staying for dinner but staying the night, as all of the clothes Will had bought for him were still there in Wolf Trap. The couch felt familiar and comfortable after the long weeks previous—doubly so after having slept so long in wolf form in a doggy bed at the home of the infamous Hannibal the Cannibal.

Frederick might have slept through the night if not for the footsteps. A blast of cold air hit him in the face and he struggled awake, the couch springs complaining. The slap of the screen door made him sit up.

Moonlight streaming in from outside the open door was so bright he might have had to shield his eyes were he fully human. But no, the form outside on the porch resolved into crisp detail immediately, silhouetted by a sky full of blazing stars.

It was very cold when he stepped outside to join Will, who was standing in a t-shirt and boxers as though the frigid night air didn’t affect him at all.

This must have been something akin to what Will had seen him do during his first nights staying in Wolf Trap. 

Only Will wasn’t confused, sleepwalking, or dreaming. He was simply staring at the moon with the same analytical gaze he lent his work. “I quit my job,” he said.

“I don’t think I _have_ one,” Frederick said.

Will smiled, though he didn’t look away from the intense moonlight. “It turns out I’m not cut out for it. I’m not sure I’m cut out for a lot of things.”

Frederick didn’t answer.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Will said at last, eyes still trained on the near-full moon. “It’s quite the thing to be both seen and understood and at the same time totally remote and unreachable.”

“We’ve reached the moon.” Frederick was confused.

“But we’ll never bring it down to us, here.”

“I don’t understand.”

Finally, Will looked over at him. “You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

“It’s too much trouble for you,” Frederick said, though it was an intentionally weak protest.

“No,” said Will. 

Frederick shivered, running his hands along his forearms in a vain attempt to ward off the cold. 

“Let’s go inside,” Will said, with one last look at the moon.

***

Frederick did not wake when Will left the house, but the quiet rumble of another engine woke him at last. In the tire tracks of Will’s station wagon was a small, sleek car. Brand new.

Margot Verger stepped out of its warm confines and into the snow.

Frederick had no time to put himself together, so he answered the door, red-faced, in his sleeping clothes. “Margot.” The dogs streamed out in a long, furry line, sniffing at her coat and hands.

“I’m sorry I came so early.”

“No—it’s no...do you want me to put some coffee on?”

“Coffee would be nice, thank you.”

As Margot removed her fur-lined gloves and draped them over the back of the wing chair, Frederick scuttled into the kitchen. The hiss and burble of the coffeemaker underlaid his return to the living room. “It’ll be just a couple minutes.”

Margot nodded.

After a few seconds, Frederick said, “Will isn’t here,” then wanted to kick himself in the head for stating the obvious.

“I actually came to see you,” Margot told him. She gave him a sad smile. “I think by now you’ve heard about the—”

Frederick took a deep breath. “The baby?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” he said.

A half-moon of tears welled in each of Margot’s gray eyes. “I am, too.”

“I would have loved that baby,” he said, without a trace of irony or jest. “I did.”

Margot only nodded, a tear slipping down her cheek. 

Frederick started to speak, then stopped himself. He bit his lip for a moment or two and then whispered, “I’d like to get to know you better.”

She smiled, though it was a weary one. “I want to get to know you, too, Frederick. But...what happened before...it won’t happen again.”

“I know.”

“I just—I can’t bring myself to feel that way. Not about men. I used you and I know it. And I’m sorry.”

Frederick shook his head. “Don’t be.”

“I’m going to be very busy in the next few months,” said Margot. “I have to set our affairs in order. Mason was a spendthrift who kept terrible records on anything that didn’t involve spying on me.”

“I understand. I won’t see you very often.”

A nod.

“I’ve been talking a lot with Alana Bloom. She’s very torn up, obviously, about what happened. Sorry. ‘Torn up’ was probably a bad choice of words.”

At that, Frederick threw back his head and laughed, deep and full. 

After only a second, Margot joined him. 

***

When Will came home that night, Frederick told him about Margot’s visit. “She didn’t say much at all about Mason.”

Will nodded. “I suspect she just wants to move on.”

“What does ‘moving on’ mean?” 

“For her?”

“For everyone, I guess.” Frederick shifted, and Buster shifted on his lap, his scar pink in the living room lamplight.

Will didn’t answer.

“Did you...you know… _wolf out_ when you killed Mason?” Frederick asked.

“No.”

“Did you want to?”

“Yes.”

“How often do you…?”

Will smiled into his cup of bourbon. “Not often. I did once while you were here.”

“No you—”

“You saw me outside the window.”

Frederick’s eyes widened. “But you were in the shower.”

“Easy to leave the water running when you know nobody’s going to be checking in on you.”

“I could have frozen to death out there!”

“You didn’t.”

Frederick opened his mouth, then shut it again. After a second he said, “No. I didn’t.”

In the lull of the conversation, Will looked out the window at the rising moon, which was nearly full. 

“So much for the myths, right?” Frederick asked.

“I wouldn’t say that’s entirely true,” Will said. 

“No silver bullets?”

“Any bullet if it’s aimed right. That’s what took down Mason Verger. The pigs were just a safety measure.”

“How long have you…?”

“Oh,” Will said. “Going on about ten years now. Back to my police days. I chased a suspect out of his car and into the woods. It was summer, then. The night smelled like jasmine and concrete until I got into the forest. Then it was dampness and pine straw. The guy was gone. Or so I thought. He jumped out and bit me right here,” Will patted his side. “Left me for dead. By the time my partner found me, I was just fine. Blood on my clothes, but no wounds. Full inquiry by IA, but it turned up nothing. Of course.”

“Did you ever find the guy?”

Will looked out the window again. “No.”

***

It was only a formality, but Frederick felt he had to officially resign his job as the head of the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. The staff, and especially the new director—someone appointed from outside much to the chagrin of Frederick’s former deputy who had expected to rise through the ranks—were shocked to see him.

He didn’t know whether it was the lack of a cane or the fact that he showed up in a checkered fleece jacket and khakis. He didn’t much care.

Seeing as he was back in Baltimore (for the day? forever?), Frederick went back to what had been his house. His canine nose could detect the reek of rot from the curb where he parked. He went up the front walk and tore off the crime scene tape from the front door. 

Much to his distaste, he could actually pick up fruity, pleasant notes in the sour scent of decay. _No wonder dogs like to roll in dead things_.

The tour of the house was brief. Here a blackened stain leaching into the grout on his otherwise impeccable kitchen tiles. There a Pollock drip and spatter of deep brown over the eggshell-white walls. Over there...the chair in which he woke up, confused and covered in blood that was not his own. Frederick had been drenched in enough blood these past weeks for a couple of lifetimes.

_And several lives._

It was that, not the stench or the sight that made him gag at last. He rushed out, avoiding congealed puddles, until he could at last breathe clean air at the door of his car. Silly car. Totally useless for navigating the bumps and ruts in Will’s long unpaved drive.

Still, he drove it back because it was all that he had.

The early winter night had descended by the time he made it back to Wolf Trap, and the moon was huge and bloody on the horizon. By his tousled and drowsy appearance, it seemed Will had already gone to bed, though it seemed a little early to turn in.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

Frederick only pursed his lips and nodded, remembering not the relatively easy resignation but the unsavory trip to the cesspit that had once been his house.

“Good, then,” said Will.

The _What now?_ that hung between them went unspoken but not unnoticed.

“A little whiskey?” Frederick asked.

Will smiled. “Sure. I’ll join you.”

They sat in the living room, the dogs around their feet—except, of course, for Buster, who shimmied up beside Frederick’s leg on the couch. 

“I went back to the house,” said Frederick.

“Did you?”

“It’s going to need a lot of work.”

“Before you can go back?”

“Before I can sell it.” He raised his mug of whiskey in Will’s direction. “Hell, maybe I’ll buy a cabin in the woods.”

Will huffed, a slight smile curling the corners of his mouth.

“Full moon tonight,” Frederick said to cut the thick silence.

“Is there?”

It seemed strange that Will, who had been enraptured by the sight of the moon the night before, was disinterested now. Even flippant.

“I’ll find a hotel to stay in tomorrow,” Frederick said.

Will only nodded.

Frederick furrowed his brow, but Will didn’t look up from his cup, either at Frederick or at the rapidly silvering moon. “I’ll let you get back to bed.”

At that, Will looked up. He stared into Frederick’s eyes, almost as if searching. “Goodnight, Frederick,” he said, waiting another split second before breaking the gaze.

Frederick said, “Goodnight,” at Will’s retreating back.

It was a long time before he could sleep, but with Buster curled against his chest and groaning like an arthritic old man in pure doggy bliss, he figured he must have drifted off until the cold air splashed into his face once again.

Will was standing on the porch staring up at the moon, his breath frosting into the night. “It has a sort of pull, doesn’t it?”

Frederick wrapped his arms around himself, shivering. “Yes.”

“Cabin in the woods,” Will repeated, a smile on his face and in his voice.

Frederick said nothing.

“The dogs like you.”

“Will.”

“Frederick.”

Frederick paused. “Will I ever see you again?”

Still looking at the moon, Will said, “No.”

Then his form shuddered, the outlines quavering and becoming fuzzy against the stark moonlight. The gray wolf shook out of the t-shirt and boxers, leaving them on the porch. Inside the house, the dogs began barking and scrabbling at the windows. 

Frederick turned around, distressed in turn by their distress.

When he looked back across the shining crust of refrozen snow, wolf-Will was making his way toward the copse over the ridge.

The dogs began to howl. 

The wolf slipped into the trees and was gone.

***

The last thing Frederick expected the next morning was a call from Jack Crawford on Will’s phone. Crawford did not sound surprised to hear Frederick’s voice on the other end of the line. In fact, the BAU director offered him a part-time consulting position. Frederick said he’d think about it.

Though they’d whined through the night, the dogs had settled down now. It was just past noon and the sun was high. A faded afterimage of a moon could be seen just opposite its brightness.

A single doe appeared on the crest of the hill in front of the house, her stick-legs quivering, ears flipping from back to front. Buster growled.

Out on the porch, the transformation was quick and effortless. He propped open the screen door to let the mass of wiggling bodies out into the cold day.

Frederick Chilton took his pack hunting.


End file.
